Media entrepreneur Marcelo Figoli enters the street advertising segment with the acquisition of the company Grupo Vía, which has a strong presence in subways, trains, shopping centers and led screens in the avenues of the city of Buenos Aires.
The owner of Alpha Media and Fenix Entertainment partnered with Juan Manuel Infante to buy Grupo Vía, an advertising communications company with over 25 years of experience in the country, for which they paid approximately $2.5 million.
“The objective of our landing is to strengthen the presence of Grupo Vía in Argentina and in the entire region, consolidating and expanding its current offer to provide advertisers with a visibility platform with the greatest variety of media and channels,” they announced Figoli and Infante, is a statement.
The previous controlling owners of the company, Silvia Marino, Marcelo Wertheimer and Francisco Martos, they will continue with management and retain a minority percentage of the shares of Grupo Vía.
An industry specialist said so clarion that one of the ways to quantify the weight of public road companies is through the distribution of official national government advertising. In this ranking, Grupo Vía is in Eleventh position among those on public roads, with 17.3 million dollars assigned from 1 September 2021 to 30 April 2022, according to the latest report from the Chief of Staff.
In the middle of last year, the October group led by trade unionist Víctor Santa María bought another of the big companies in the public road sector, Girola, which boasts 50 years of industry experience and was ranked No. 7 in the Official Advertising Rankings, with $23.7 million.
A year ago, the Santa María-managed SUTERH foundation had already bought VPM, which has its strong point in mobile advertising on buses, and in 2022 remained with advertising in Ecobicis stations in Buenos Aires.
Another of the strong protagonists of the sector is the presidential adviser Enrique “Pepe” Albistur, former media secretary and husband of Albertist minister Victoria Tolosa Pazwhich manages the companies Wall Street and Grupo al Sur.
The new owners of Grupo Vía
Juan Manuel Infante has extensive experience in creating communication spaces for brands and companies, such as his company Stadium, which among other activities sells static electricity on football pitches, in collaboration with Carlos Abdo, of Estática Internacional, according to José Crettaz in a survey by La Nación.
Figoli is the owner of Fenix Entertainment Group. Also, through Alpha Media, he owns the radio Rivadavia, La990, AM 550, Rock & Pop, Blu, Metro, LT3 Rosario, Info 95.5 and La 103.1, together with Noticias Argentinas (NA) agency and the local version of Newsweek magazine.
Figoli’s main activity is the organization of shows, through Fénix, a global entertainment and entertainment company, with a presence in Argentina, Latin America and Europe. He got his start in the media industry in early 2016 when he bought Rock & Pop and Splendid (now La990) radio stations.
But it is in 2018 that Figoli begins a real media expansion, buying several radio stations and the NA agency. In May he stayed with Radio Cologne and its Magic FM. In July, it bought FM Blue (in partnership with Grupo América). And in September 2018, Alpha Media bought 80% of the Noticias Argentinas agency, the largest private news agency in the country, from the Fascetto family.
Two years ago, in January 2021, Fenix bought Parque de la Costa from Sociedad Comercial del Plata; and in mid-2022 it remained with the historic Rosario LT3 radio station, in what was Figoli’s latest expansion, until the announcement of the acquisition of Grupo Vía this Monday.
As Clarín was able to discover, Figoli’s plan is to continue expanding into the provincial media, especially in the south and center of the country; and there is also talk of his intention to buy a television channel, to enhance its presence as an audiovisual multimedia.
Source: Clarin
