Talk:Grupo Financiero Banamex

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[edit] Research needs

Could someone try to dig out the following in (US$ equivalents): 1. How much was paid for Banamex originally in 1991. 2. Amounts and dates of the three portfolio sales to Fobaproa done by Banamex between 1995-1997.

These amounts should be included in the article. Furthermore, this data would serve to show that Roberto Hernandez and Alfredo Harp did a pretty good business when they sold Banamex to Citigroup. I remember back then that Sergio Sarmiento, the Reforma columnist wrote at the time that "contrary to popular belief" the owners had actually lost money, or something like that. This is hogwash. I did the calculation once and the shareholders had a decent Internal Rate of Return.

This not to even mention the lack of Income Taxes on the sale to Citibank, nor the fact that the rest of Mexicans got stuck with the bill.

I work for a bulge bracket investment bank in New York and I was absolutely incensed by this whole thing. I remember talking to a couple of equity analysts following Mexican banks and they all agreed that this was the robbery of the century.

Obviously, the caveat to what I just wrote, is that no new money would have come into the system if the portfolio sales to Fobaproa hadn't been done, and the financial system would probably still not be totally out of the water. To counter this, however, I can't think of any instance internationally in which a bank rescue included rescuing shareholders and not just the banks (and there are examples like the savings and loan crisis in the United States in the late 80s, or the Credit Lyonnais rescue in France. Typically you rescue the bank but let shareholders get wiped out, which makes sense since it was largely shareholders actions that caused the problem in the first place.