What does Chavez’s death mean for brewer Polar?

This beggars belief. Only hours after it was announced that Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez had died of cancer on 5 March 2013, the Forbes business magazine, on its website, ran an article entitled, yes, "What does the death of the ‘Comandante’ mean to Venezuelan billionaires? Will they get richer now that the ‘21st century socialist’ is gone?"

At brewer Polar, which has 75 percent of the Venezuelan beer market, they cannot have been too pleased with this sort of contentious reporting as their owner gets mentioned in the fourth paragraph.

It reads: "Venezuela’s second richest man is Lorenzo Mendoza, with a net worth estimated at USD 4 billion. Mendoza will probably be celebrating tonight as well. Former President Hugo Chavez regularly attacked Mendoza in the press and Mendoza fired back constantly, always criticising the country’s strict price controls. Mendoza runs Empresas Polar, one of Venezuela’s largest private companies. Polar makes beer and basic food items including flour, condiments, tuna fish and wine; the privately held company reported revenues of USD 6.5 billion in 2011."

It’s the word "probably" which underlines that the author of the piece is strictly guessing. But the intention is clear: all who have crossed swords with the socialist leader will be toasting his timely demise.

There is no denying, though, that relations between Mr Chavez and the business community have been strained – as they should have been – given that the "Commandante" has nationalised well over 1,000 companies of all shapes and sizes since he came to power, often live on television to excited cheers of approval from red–shirted followers, as the Financial Times newspaper wrote in 2012.

"But there is one company", the FT continued, "that the firebrand president has preferred not to meddle with: Empresas Polar, Venezuela’s biggest privately–owned company, a national icon since it was founded six decades ago. Polar is by far Venezuela’s most important brand, best known for beer whose label features a polar bear and for selling boldly American products such as Pepsi, Gatorade and Quaker Oats."

Mr Chavez may not have dared to nationalise Polar, which enjoys great popular support. Perhaps he guessed rightly that his government would fail to run it as efficiently, as the FT speculated. Polar is cited by many Venezuelans as a paragon of corporate culture and a model for how a company should be managed.

However, Mr Chavez never toned down his rhetoric against Polar nor did he reign in his hotheaded agitators. Only on 13 January 2013 could we read about Polar on marxist.com:

"The momentum is being created for a situation in which the revolution could be completed. The wrath provoked by the crass opportunism of the oligarchy should be used to strike decisive blows against the property–owning class. Faced with speculation and hoarding, workers at POLAR and other companies, which monopolise food production and distribution, should organise workers’ control committees in conjunction with the communal councils and demand the expropriation of the saboteurs. This would mean, as a matter of fact, the expropriation of the Mendoza family, owners of the Polar group of companies. ... Many in Venezuela are asking themselves how much longer they will be allowed to continue with their undemocratic actions against the will of the majority."

The Economist newspaper on 5 March 2013 gave a well–rounded assessment of the situation post–Chavez: "Mr Chávez is mourned by millions of Venezuelans, for whom he was a kind of Robin Hood, shouting defiance at ‘the empire’ (ie the United States) and the ‘oligarchy’ (ie the rich) while handing out windfall oil revenues. His opponents, many of whom saw him as a corrupt dictator, will sense deliverance. That may be premature."

Seems like Venezuela’s businessmen should better continue to keep a low public profile.