During the years of Pérez Jiménez's administration, the State intervened in areas of the economy that were traditionally carried out by private companies. The Pérez Jiménez government was characterized by its state capitalism and not by liberal capitalism. It was an antecedent of the populist and paternalistic economic regime of the later democratic regimes. The national private entrepreneurship increasingly had less space to grow and prosper. The State was the great capitalist in the Venezuela of Pérez Jiménez and was the largest national shareholder of major hotel chains such as Sheraton.