Almendral

What it is

Almendral S.A. is a Chilean holding company established in 1981 that has invested in telecommunications, property, sanitation, and healthcare. Today it owns a controlling 54.8% stake in Entel through its subsidiary Altel Inversiones Ltda., a position that represents 98% of its investment activity.

Entel itself is Chile’s largest telecom company, serving over 20.77 million subscribers across Chile and Peru with mobile, fibre broadband, cybersecurity, and corporate IT services. Almendral is best understood as a listed wrapper around that single, dominant asset.

Who owns it

Almendral is jointly controlled by three Chilean business groups: the Matte Group (forestry, energy, banking), the Hurtado Vicuña Group (investments, insurance, copper), and the Hernández León Group (health, mining, insurance). Together, insiders hold 46.2% of the shares — the structured data figure — with institutional investors at 23.7% and the remaining free float of roughly 30% (our calculation) trading on the Santiago exchange.

The board chair is Juan Hurtado Vicuña; vice-chair is Luis Felipe Gazitúa Achondo. Behind the controlling bloc sit members of the Larraín Matte, Matte Capdevila, and Matte Izquierdo families, bound by a shareholders’ agreement that limits the free disposal of their shares.

Who runs it

Luis Felipe Gazitúa Achondo serves as chairman of Almendral’s board, a civil-industrial engineer from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. No separate chief executive is publicly disclosed for the holding company itself — consistent with its lean, investment-only structure — not disclosed in available sources.

Antonio Büchi is the general manager (CEO) of operating subsidiary Entel, making him the executive who drives the day-to-day results that flow back to Almendral’s income statement.

The money, in plain words

Almendral earned CLP 2,954.9bn (US$3.26bn) in annual sales in FY 2025 — up 9.3% on FY 2024 and 19.5% on FY 2023 (our calculations) — as Entel’s subscriber base and equipment sales grew in both Chile and Peru. Of every peso of those sales, Almendral kept about 3.5 cents as profit — a net profit margin of 3.5% — thin by global standards, reflecting the capital-heavy nature of running mobile and fibre networks across two countries.

For every peso shareholders have put in, the company earns about 9.3 cents a year back — a return on equity of 9.3% — solid for a regulated telecom. The market values the whole business at just 4.6 times annual earnings (a price-to-earnings ratio of 4.6×), a discount that reflects both the holding-company structure and the concentration risk of a single-asset portfolio, but it produces a generous dividend yield of 9.1%, making it a yield vehicle as much as a growth story.

What it is doing now

In November 2025, Chile became the first country in Latin America — and the fifth in the world — to commercially launch satellite connectivity direct to mobile phones, through Entel’s alliance with SpaceX’s Starlink. The service began with SMS messaging in 2025 and expanded in 2026 to support compatible apps including WhatsApp and Google Maps, reaching remote areas, deserts, and open sea where no ground network exists.

In 2024, Entel also achieved 50% growth in fibre-to-the-home subscribers, doubling coverage from 1.2 million to over 3 million homes across 15 regions. Entel holds a 41% revenue share in Chile’s mobile market and leads 5G deployment with a 47.5% market share.

What to watch

• Net profit recovery. FY 2025 net income of CLP 103.2bn (US$113.8m) was more than triple the depressed CLP 32.9bn (US$36 mn) in FY 2024, but still below the CLP 48.4bn (US$53 mn) reported in FY 2023 on a different cost base — investors will watch whether margins widen as fibre investment matures.
• Single-asset concentration. Almendral’s Entel stake represents 98% of its investment activity, so any regulatory pressure, competitive shock, or currency move in Chile or Peru flows directly to the holding.
• Satellite-to-data upgrade. The Starlink service is still evolving through 2025–2026, with voice calls to follow data. Successful commercialisation could lift average revenue per user meaningfully.
• Dividend sustainability. A 9.1% yield demands consistent cash flows from Entel; any fibre capex surge or debt refinancing at Entel would tighten the dividend at Almendral level.

This is news, not investment advice.