The businessman will be the majority shareholder of Banamex while the bank decides to which other investors can offer minor participations and the list of shares in the stock market.
He thanked the Secretary of the Treasury, Édgar Amador, for his participation in this operation and ruled out that the government of Claudia Sheinbaum has imposed some type of condition to make this purchase.
This clarification was made because in 2022, when Citigroup announced that it sold Banamex, then President López Obrador had made a list of conditions for the future buyer: that he was a current Mexican in the payment of his taxes, that he maintained the jobs and that the cultural heritage remained in the country.
The acquisition process is expected to conclude in the second half of 2026 and it will be Citigroup who pays the corresponding taxes.
Fernando Chico Pardo told a joint conference with Manuel Romo, general director of Banamex and with Ernesto Torres Cantú, director of Citi International, who did not participate in the first purchase process of the bank because he did not “understand it” but more than half a year ago, he was invited by Manuel Romo and Jane Fraser to know the books of the bank and thus motivate him to make the purchase.
“I think that in five months we were already seeing (the purchase) with all the seriousness, making a formal offer,” he explained.
The businessman is married to Roberto Hernández’s sister, expropientary and general director of Banamex.
Fernando Chico Pardo added that one of his plans for the bank is to enter business in which Banamex does not operate as well as making investments in the bank’s digitalization and winks to look for a stock market.
“I started my career in the bank, in a stock market, and then worked very closely in the creation of a bank. So, return to Banamex at the end of my career is a dream,” he acknowledged.
This September 24, Citi announced that the airport businessman Fernando Chico Pardo acquired 25% of Banamex’s shares, which became the president of the Financial Group.
Banamex is the fourth largest financial group in Mexico for total assets, it also has a network of more than 1,300 branches, more than 9,000 ATMs, about 13.6 million consumer banking customers, more than 6,000 business banking clients and 8.6 million clients of the AFORE.
The Bank reports average annual utilities of about 22,000 million pesos, according to figures from the National Banking and Securities Commission (CNBV).
