page_title: La Anonima
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: La Anonima / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Jose Menendez, founder of Argentine supermarket chain en:La Anonima.
context_page_description: S.A. Importadora y Exportadora de la Patagonia, doing business as La Anónima, is an Argentine chain of supermarkets that operates mainly in the region of Patagonia.
  Formats consist of mostly mid-size supermarkets, as well as some hypermarkets that are usually anchors for shopping malls. Stores carry both standard brand names and private label brands, such as La Anonima and Best. The company also operates two major meat packing plants, and some of its products are exported to other countries. Today, La Anonima has 162 branches in 83 cities across Argentina and its workforce consists of 11,500 employees, making it, as of 2015, the fifth-biggest supermarket chain in the country by sales.
context_section_description: At the end of the 19th century, Jose Menendez was a powerful landowner, colonizer, banker, industrialist and owner of a shipping company. His company's main trading post was set up in Punta Arenas, Chile, while also maintaining numerous establishments in Argentine territory.
  In 1908, Menendez, Mauricio Braun and Gastón Blanchard merged their respective companies and founded the Sociedad Anonima Importadora y Exportadora de la Patagonia (Import and Export Company of Patagonia), initially based in Punta Arenas, passing into Argentine jurisdiction in 1910.
  By 1911 it was operating several stores in a warehouse format, while also having a naval fleet as well as regular passenger and cargo transportation lines between Buenos Aires and Punta Arenas, with stopovers in several Argentine Patagonia ports, through the use of two ships made to order in Britain: the Argentine and the Asturian.
  Mr. Menendez died in Buenos Aires in 1918, never having lost his Spanish nationality. At the time, the president of La Anónima was his son-in-law, Mauricio Braun (of German and Prussian descent), who remained in this position until 1932, when he was replaced by Carlos Menéndez Behety.
  By 1929 it had 25 branches in different locations within southern Argentina, in addition to 4 ships. 
  The Braun Menendez conglomerate worked in different areas, monopolizing much of the wool trade, meat packing industry and banking sector of Patagonia. Both families were part of the Argentine Rural Society and together owned the Exploitation Company of Tierra del Fuego, having 430,000 hectares with 1,250,000 sheep that produced 5 million kilos of wool, as well as leather and meat.
  The company spearheaded economic development in the region, becoming involved in industries as diverse as electricity generation and transmission, telephony, and transportation of people and goods.
  This process was not without conflict, though. Like other large trading companies in the Americas at the time (such as HBC in Canada), the company purchased lands from the government that were previously inhabited by natives such as the Selk'nam, Yámana, Qawasqar and Alacalufes. The process of conquering these lands in Argentina was called Conquest of the Desert. 
  Due to how long and complex the company name was, inhabitants of Patagonia simply called it "La Anónima" (literally, The Anonymous), and the name stuck. Between 1929 and 1968 La Anónima published the magazine La Argentina Austral, and also participated in the inauguration of the first radio programs in Comodoro Rivadavia and Río Gallegos. In 1942, the company opened its capital to public offering, trading in the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange since then.
  In 1957, La Anónima and other partners created the airline Austral Líneas Aéreas, which eventually became the second-largest commercial airline in the country after Aerolíneas Argentinas. The name Austral reflects the Patagonian identity of its owners.
  In 1967 the company started selling off various assets, including ships, warehouses and numerous buildings. During the same year, several warehouses were converted to the supermarket format, the Trelew location being the first, and this transition was completed in 1971. 
  In the early 1980s, the stock package was again concentrated in the Braun family, who assumed the current leadership of the company and launched a new strategy aimed at gaining leadership in the retail industry of the Patagonia region through a policy of growth, adopting new technologies and establishing a new corporate identity. The company is known for being an early adopter of innovative retail technology such as barcodes, in the 1980s.
caption: Jose Menendez
exif: {}