Gino Lorenzini

Gino Darío Lorenzini Barrios (born 18 June 1982) is a Chilean businessman and financial commentator, best known as the founder of Felices y Forrados (FyF), a company that advised participants in Chile's private pension system (AFP) on when to switch their savings among pension funds.

He has taken part in public debates over Chile's pension system and has sought elected office on several occasions. Lorenzini presented pension reform proposals before Congress in 2013, including the creation of a state-owned pension fund administrator (AFP estatal) and the introduction of performance-based commissions.

Following the closure of FyF, he continued participating in public discussions on pension policy, opposing aspects of the 2025 pension reform and, in September 2026, launching a campaign encouraging affiliates to file constitutional protection actions concerning the transfer of their savings to generational funds.

Early life and career

Lorenzini was raised in Antofagasta. He earned a degree in commercial engineering (ingeniería comercial) from Alberto Hurtado University and a master's degree in finance from the University of Chile, which he was completing during the 2008 financial crisis.

Before founding Felices y Forrados, he held commercial and management positions in the retail and export sectors, including serving as commercial manager of Chilesin, an exporter of safety products, between 2011 and 2012.

Felices y Forrados

Lorenzini began issuing free recommendations on when to switch between pension funds through LinkedIn on 27 July 2011, with an initial suggestion to move 100% of savings to Fund E, the most conservative fund. The company, Felices y Forrados SpA, was formally incorporated on 16 February 2012 and operated as a subscription service, charging users a monthly fee for its fund-switching alerts.

On 16 October 2019, two days before the onset of the social unrest, Felices y Forrados advised its users to move half of their savings out of Fund E, citing a possible rise in interest rates on the Central Bank's inflation-indexed bonds. In an interview, Lorenzini said the company's model had detected an anomaly in the bond market before the unrest, allowing its users to avoid a loss of about 11% in Fund E.

He suggested that some market participants may have sold bonds in the first weeks of October with prior knowledge of the situation, and called on the Financial Market Commission to investigate possible insider trading.

Consumer protection proceedings

In a November 2020 opinion column in La Tercera, portfolio manager Salvador Palma argued that, once a four-business-day settlement period for fund switches was taken into account, clients who followed the company's recommendations since 17 October 2019 had obtained a return of 1.99%, rather than the 14.09% advertised by Felices y Forrados. Following the column, Chile's National Consumer Service (Sernac) opened an investigation, and in June 2021 it filed a complaint before the Third Local Police Court of Las Condes alleging misleading advertising and unverifiable claims.

In October 2021, responding to a Sernac request, the Superintendency of Pensions reviewed the contested claims. It successfully replicated the returns published by Felices y Forrados for all six AFPs, including the 14.09% figure for AFP Provida, as well as Sernac's recalculation for the period from 17 October 2019 to 23 September 2020, in which the strategy outperformed both Fund A and Fund E at every AFP. The Superintendency stated that Sernac had made a "specific confusion" regarding the cut-off date of one claim, as fund unit values are published with a two-business-day lag, while agreeing with Sernac's analysis on other claims. It also noted that the company had issued recommendations since 27 July 2011, earlier than the date cited by Sernac.

In July 2023, the court found the company liable and fined it 500 UTM; Sernac had sought 2,700 UTM. On 11 September 2026, the Santiago Court of Appeals upheld the fine while revoking the order to pay costs. Felices y Forrados subsequently filed a recurso de queja before the Supreme Court, challenging the assessment of its evidence, including user surveys and an external audit by Mazars. Lorenzini disputed the findings and maintained that the Superintendency's report supported the company's published returns.

Regulation and closure

In 2021, Congress passed Law No. 21,314, establishing registration and financial guarantee requirements for pension fund advisers. Lorenzini opposed the legislation, particularly its guarantee requirements, while regulators cited concerns about financial market stability.

Following its approval, Felices y Forrados announced that it would cease operations. The company, which reported approximately 200,000 subscribers, issued its final recommendation on 30 June 2021 and closed on 1 July.

Political activity

2021 presidential candidacy

In 2021, Lorenzini and former presidential candidate Franco Parisi promoted the formation of the Party of the People (PDG). Lorenzini later distanced himself from the party and, in August 2021, registered as an independent candidate in the presidential election.

Servel rejected the candidacy on the grounds that Lorenzini had been affiliated with the PDG within the nine months preceding the registration deadline. He had applied for membership on 12 June 2021; the party reported the affiliation to Servel on 5 August, and he resigned on 9 August. Lorenzini, who said he had gathered more than 41,000 signatures against the 33,000 required, described the decision as the work of a "dark hand" (mano negra) and questioned how he could be considered a party member when Servel itself had certified him as independent on 9 August and authorised him to collect signatures as an independent on 11 August.

Before the Election Certification Tribunal (Tricel), Lorenzini argued that his affiliation had never taken effect because the party had not acknowledged his application within the period required by its statutes, and that his situation was identical to that of another candidate, Jorge Sepúlveda Haugen, whose independent candidacy had been accepted despite a similar application to the PDG. Servel responded that, unlike Lorenzini's, Sepúlveda's affiliation had never been reported by the party. On 8 September 2021, the Tricel unanimously rejected the appeal, holding that Lorenzini had been a party member from 12 June to 9 August 2021, within the period prohibited by law.

Pension policy

In January 2013, Lorenzini presented before the Senate's special commission on the pension fund system, in a session that also heard the Superintendent of Pensions, Solange Berstein, and industry representatives; Felices y Forrados was invited to Congress twice that year. Speaking on behalf of the company's users, he proposed, among other measures, AFP commissions linked to returns, a state-owned AFP, and a mixed system in which the state would deposit one million pesos in an individual capitalisation account for each newborn, to accrue returns until retirement. He presented a similar set of proposals in May 2013 at a seminar on pension reform organised by Senator Eugenio Tuma.

Lorenzini remained active in public debate on Chile's pension system after the closure of Felices y Forrados, using the company's social media accounts, which he described as a news outlet. He had previously addressed the Chamber of Deputies' Constitution Committee on the early withdrawal of pension savings, at the invitation of deputy Roberto Arroyo.

On 29 January 2025, the day the Chamber approved the government's pension reform, Lorenzini was present at the National Congress at Arroyo's invitation and said he spoke with about twenty deputies to warn of what he considered systemic risks in the bill, particularly the replacement of the multi-fund system with generational funds, the elimination of the AFPs' reserve requirement (encaje), and changes to investment limits. He also questioned the additional 1.5% contribution structured as a loan to the state, and urged lawmakers to challenge the law before the Constitutional Court; an attempt led by Arroyo failed to gather the required signatures.

In September 2026, ahead of the mandatory transfer of affiliates' savings to generational funds scheduled for April 2027, Lorenzini launched a campaign encouraging affiliates to file individual recursos de protección (constitutional protection actions) seeking to keep their accumulated savings in their chosen multi-fund, with the goal of at least 10,000 filings. He published a template and a step-by-step guide for adapting it with artificial intelligence, noting that the individual filings had not been reviewed by a lawyer and that a favourable outcome was not guaranteed. Lorenzini acknowledged that the chances of success were low, as the actions sought to preserve funds that would cease to exist by law.