Chilean business magnate Ponce exits firms with stakes in lithium miner SQM

Chilean business magnate Julio Ponce will leave several of his companies, he said in a statement on Thursday, while the firms announced a broader restructuring that seeks to merge units into fewer entities. Ponce said he was passing on control to his family, notably his daughter Francisca Ponce, who would be advised by his brother Eugenio Ponce. "I have decided to announce that I will no longer be a protagonist in this story," said Ponce, 79, the former son-in-law of the late Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.