Former Bancolombia President In Speech To Gilinski: Stop This War!
The way some see it, Jaime Gilinski is back for vengeance. The billionaire who once controlled Banco de Colombia, sold a controlling share to the Medellín based owners of Banco Industrial Colombiano in 1997, who then merged the two, creating Bancolombia, now Colombia’s largest bank, with an international footprint.
Gilinski and the “Paisas” (people from Medellín and its surrounding region) quickly fell out, and ended on bad terms, with litigation lasting for more than a decade. Things remained relatively quiet, with Gilinski tending to his many other business ventures, including plastics manufacturers, media. candy companies, and his own Colombian banks, GNB Sudameris, and Lulo Bank, as well as his own ATM network serving his banks, and many independent credit cooperatives (credit unions) throughout Colombia.
The Paisas, who in some ways have had a more modern business outlook than other regions of Colombia, created a cross-ownership structure of major Medellín businesses to prevent control by dominant families like in other parts of Colombia—think the Santo Domingo, Ardila Lülle, or Gilinski family business dynasties—and also impose a level of corporate governance not usually seen in Latin American countries. Medellín does not have a political or business dominant family “running things” behind the scene pulling all the strings, unlike most of Colombia, or most of Latin America. Instead, for example, El Pais reports that as of 2021, Medellín food conglomerate Nutresa had no shareholder with more than 1%. This means that professional management had the influence, and nepotism is kept out. There is a cross ownership structure among major Medellín companies that serves as a form of checks and balances, but also keeps control local to the Paisa community. This cross ownership structure is known as the Grupo Empresarial Antioqueño (GEA) informally, but such a structure does not exist formally. It is more of an informal clan with common interests rather than a legally defined entity. The major companies own shares in each other, and control is shared through voting shares and corporate boards.
Mr. Gilinski does not like this arrangement and has been seeking to vindicate himself against the Paisas. Though he is already reportedly Colombia’s 2nd or 3rd richest individual according to various rankings, that is not enough juice to take on the well-coordinated and insular Paisa business community. Gilinski himself sought a “patron” (sponsor, godfather, boss, backer) in Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, son of the founder of the United Arab Emirates. Since 2021, Gilinski and his backers have waged a war against the Paisas to take control of their jewels, namely Bancolombia, Grupo Sura, Nutresa, and Grupo Argos: All large, publicly traded international companies, and the economic engines of Medellín.
It is difficult to overstate the effect of this “invasion” as they see it, on the close knit Medellín business community. It is no overstatement to say that regardless of one’s opinion of any one of the companies, they are foundational to Medellín’s identity the way Microsoft is to Redmond, Washington or Apple is to Cupertino, California.
Former Bancolombia President Carlos Raúl Yepes came out of retirement and private life to take the microphone during the extraordinary shareholder meeting of Sura, Colombia’s largest insurance and asset management conglomerate, where Gilinski was trying to take control of the company, to make a stirring speech in which he directly addressed the “war” as many see it, between Gilinski and GEA.
Carlos Raúl Yepes:
I want, before anything else, to say that no one has ordered me to be in this assembly. I am no one’s adviser, I am no one’s spokesman, I am doing this because of my convictions. I do not have stocks in any of these companies, but last Monday I bought a share from Grupo Suramericana Inversiones to be able to intervene today. It cost me 38.600 pesos, plus taxes and commission, and here I am. And my one share is worth as much as Dr. Jaime Gilinski and his entire group’s. So I want you all to know that I am not a messenger, no one has sent me. I was at my house, and I saw what was happening, and I was seeing it with a lot of sadness. I felt bad, feeling like I had to stay silent. Just like no one was forcing me to stay silent, no one was forcing me to come here. I simply wish to express my sadness for this nightmare. I know what Juan Luis is feeling because he worked with me, same with the lawyers, the directors, and I know this suffering that comes with being at the front of these companies. Pressured, discredited, that which they call the GEA that does not exist, they are just convictions from some very important people who in the past, in the years 35, 40, 45, started companies, companies that today are the pride of the country, companies that today are demonstrating what they do on an international level, companies that have never, if you take notice, been involved in any scandals. Here the only thing we know how to do is work, work honorably, and we won’t let anyone discredit that.
Today, what I want is to expose my testimony, Dr. Gilinski, of the experience I had when we met all those years ago. You are an intelligent person, a bold one, you know I respect you, and you have always respected me. That’s why when I went with Gabriel [Jaime Gilinski’s father], when I was named president of the bank, I already knew him, from the respect I had for your father, and I still do. And at that time, we decided to buy a majority of the percentage of the Bank of Colombia, which Dr. Gilinski, very young, had acquired his majority percentage. I think that was the year ’94, and we did the business in the year ’97.
And it started really well, we were doing really well when the Asian crisis came. By the end of the year ’97, we wrote to Dr. Gilinski’s lawyers, I never forget the name, Davis Loan. They write to our lawyer in New York Michael Manny, and they tell us, we have some serious problems. In that transaction, we were scammed, and the war starts. A war that lasted a long time, a war where they told us, you have to suspend the assembly of the year ’98. A war that, with all due respect I say because I lived it, no one has told me what I am saying, I lived it. And what I did you will understand why, it was 12 years of suffering where I couldn’t watch my children grow, where we all suffered so much. We solved one lawsuit and we got three more, and we got accusations and complaints. And Dr. Gilinski, I haven’t told this, but this scar I have here, I called it Gilinski. When I had heart surgery, I broke down. I was 33 years old, and it was the first 6 years out of 11, almost 12 years of suffering.
I remember that at that time Julio Sánchez spoke of the dream team, and it was. How couldn’t it be the dream team, a great team of distinguished lawyers, comprised of Doctor Fernando Londoño Hoyos; Doctor Fernando Hinestrosa, Principal of the Externado; Doctor Néstor Humberto Martinez and his father, Doctor Néstor Camilo; Doctor Luis Fernando López, former superintendent of stocks, Doctor Gustavo De Greiff, the prosecutor, Doctor Jaime Bernal, a former attorney; dream team.

Former Bancolombia president Carlos Raúl Yepes blames his heart attack on battles with Gilinski (courtesy Bancolombia)
And I have to say one thing, because history needs to be relived, brought back, remembered, because now, what I want to end with, which is why I want to mention it: that legal dream team was a small part, because the way that it was structured, it was a business that started really well, and I don’t understand why with businesses you have to design a political strategy, a communication strategy, to push it forward, when the legal side is enough, the ethical side is enough; but no, there was that legal front, and do you know who was the legal vice president of the Bank of Colombia, who was at the front of the transaction and negotiation with the Colombian Banco de Sol? And who was my speaker partner, because Dr. Gilinski assigned him to be our speaker, and I spoke with him, and we stepped forward to have [Colombian fast food chain] El Corral burgers for lunch, when we were in the due diligence [process]? Sirs, the one who guided that legal strategy, and coordinated the entire strategy with Dr. Néstor Humberto Martinez, was Doctor Alex Vernot Hernández, today sentenced to 71 months in prison for bribing witnesses in criminal proceedings. That was the great ideologist. I don’t know what is today the relationship between Dr. Gilinski and Alex Vernot.
Gonzalo: Dr. Carlos Raúl, since we are in assembly-
Carlos Raúl: Don’t worry doctor, I’ll be done in 10 minutes. I won’t take longer than that.
Gonzalo: No. Five minutes, please.
Carlos Raúl: Thank you very much, Dr. Gonzalo. By the way, the first time I see Dr. Gonzalo Pérez in seven years, I haven’t seen him in a while, not even texting, just so you don’t go saying that I talk to him and they sent me here to do something.
And after that legal strategy, Dr. Gonzalo Pérez, there was the political strategy. Politics needed to be added to that. Dr. Néstor Humberto, who today is not on very friendly terms with Dr. Vernot from what I read, they met with a very passionate and intelligent chamber (congress) representative who used for the first time an article of the Constitution that allowed political control over private entities. And on May 9, 2001, they sat Dr. Jorge Rondolio and myself with the whole team, resisting that political onslaught in Congress.
That passionate and intelligent politician is now President Gustavo Petro. The political side was taken care of. Politics is part of that big strategy. Dr. Álvaro Uribe appointed Isaac the ambassador of Israel, and Dr. Juan Manuel Santos appointed Isaac at the UN, and Dr. Iván Duque did the same, appointing him as alternate ambassador. They are good recognized and meritorious people. And it’s just a small part, but it turns out that communication also needs to be involved, there has to be communication, we have to tell stories, have a narrative. And to hire a great political strategist, who is still working. Mr. Ángel Beccassino, today adviser to Mayor Daniel Quintero, the axis of the triumvirate, that’s what we were facing, that’s what was making us suffer.
And why do I tell this story? Because it’s relevant, and it’s relevant because it’s (unintelligible), and it has different fronts of war, and I have Dr. Gilinski in front of me, and I know you know that what I’ve said is absolutely true, and please, if I haven’t said something correct, you’ll correct me. But all I want to say and end with, Dr. Gonzalo, and I’ll finish, is that this war has to be stopped. Enough of this nightmare. Business can’t be done like this.
Video recording credit: El Colombiano