The railway natinalisation in Argentina occurred on March 1, 1948, during President Juan Perón's first term of office, when the seven British- and three French-owned railway companies then operating in Argentina, were purchased by the state. These companies, together with those that were already state-owned, where grouped, according to their track gauge and locality, into a total of six state-owned companies which later became divisions of the state-owned holding company Ferrocarriles Argentinos.