Carlos Ardila Lulle Net Worth

What is Carlos Ardila Lulle's Net Worth?

Carlos Ardila Lulle is a Colombian entrepreneur who has a net worth of $2.6 billion. Born Carlos Arturo Ardila Lulle on July 4, 1930 in Bucaramanga, Colombia,

he turned into a soda pop tycoon as the founder and head of the Organizacion Ardila Lulle. It's a major Colombian conglomerate which controls soft drink firms such as RCN TV and Postobon, as well as media companies and the Atletico Nacional football team. A graduate of National University of Colombia in civil engineering, he started to work in the soft drink business as a Plant Manager for Gaseosas LUX. While he climbed up the corporate ladder, Ardila Lulle began buying up shares of soda-making competitor Postobon. Eventually, he became the majority shareholder and landed the position of president at Postobon, S.A. in 1968. Five years later, he bought a local radio station and went on to acquire numerous other stations across Colombia, thus building Radio Cadena Nacional. At the same time, he formed a programming arm that produced telenovelas and news for Colombia's government-owned television channel. When the government privatized broadcasting in 1998, he set up RCN TV, the Colombia television station that produced the global hit telenovela "Betty La Fea" or "Ugly Betty". Most recently, in 2012, Carlos Ardila Lulle inked a deal with Rupert Murdoch to create a Spanish-language channel for Hispanics in the U.S., which will be a competitor to Telemundo and Univision. Also owner of Colombia's largest sugar refinery and stakeholder in bottling and packaging, he has become one of the richest men in Latin America.