Abdication of a Tycoon

If any businessman had the push & pull to make big money in Argentina, it was Alberto Dodero. The youngest and brightest of five sons of an Italian immigrant in Uruguay, he built his father's tidy little shipping business into the biggest merchant fleet in South America, became a flashy free-spending tycoon who dazzled even the free-spending Argentines. Last week, at 62, in one of the most startling moves in a full-blown career, he abdicated as shipping king.

Alberto Dodero laid a course toward the big time when as a young man he moved from Montevideo to Buenos Aires and added to the family business a freighter bought on credit. He quickly gathered headway. At the end of World War I, with a credit of $10 million, he got 148 surplus U.S. ships, resold them at a handsome profit. Then he bought into the Mihanovich Line in his adopted Argentina, owned it 15 years later. By World War II, Dodero had over 300 ships, plus a choice assortment of real estate and other properties. In 1944, his war-cargoed ships alone netted him $5,600,000. But the shrewdest judgment of his career was his early recognition of Juan and Eva Peron.

Truffles from Rome. He gave them diamonds and Rolls-Royces, took to wearing gold replicas of their profiles in his lapel. By the time Peron's election and inauguration were over, Don Alberto had become a permanent house guest in the presidential residence. The Peron government threw almost all its shipping contracts to him, lent him money to buy more ships, granted him many another fat favor. It went all-out on a long-ignored demand for indemnity on a Dodero ship that had been sunk by the Nazis in 1940. In addition to the 2,000,000 pesos that Dodero had asked, it gave him 15 million pesos more to cover what he would have made with the ship if it had not been sunk.

Swarthy, suave Alberto Dodero knew what he wanted to do with his money. He bought a yacht, a plane, a fleet of cars, elaborate homes near Buenos Aires and Montevideo, in New York, London, Paris and Cannes. He entertained like a Croesus, invited scores of guests for a lobster supper as casually as he brought five kilos of white truffles from Rome. During summers on the Riviera he spent an estimated $50,000 a week for entertainment. He had a sharp eye--as well as the gifts of a Santa Claus--for pretty women. He has been twice married, the second time to a U.S. ex-dancer, Betty Sundmark, who recently went back to him after getting a divorce.

Gripes in B.A. As Argentina's postwar trade boom slowed down (so far this year, exports are about one-third of 1948's), Dodero complained that the government's state-trading policies were at fault. Despite their long friendship, Peron paid him no heed. Instead, he made him a take-itor-leave-it offer to sell out to the government.

Last week, the Peron regime's nationalization program, which had already absorbed railroads, telephones and other utilities, took over Dodero's ships, his shares in an airline, and all the rest of his Argentine business property except five apartment houses. The terms were those of a forced sale: 26 million pesos (less than $3,000,000) for the controlling stock.

The Dodero properties were worth much more than the government paid for them and the fact that Don Alberto would sell at such a bargain price left Argentines breathless. Whatever the government pressure, the public could only conclude that Dodero knew when to get out. Apparently shrewd Don Alberto foresaw no future for free enterprisers like himself in Peron's Argentina.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.