Finally, the forecasts and the discreet billionaire David Martínez Guzmán confirmed on Tuesday that he will go to the BBVA hostile public acquisition offer (OPA) on Banco Sabadell, of which the Mexican is the largest individual shareholder with 3.86% valued at about 640 million.
Martínez, 68, known for his enormous discretion and lives on horseback between New York and London, has administered in recent years at least four companies in his country of origin in which he has shared positions with at least nine counselors and advisors of BBVA there. He currently appears as administrator of these companies with half a dozen people linked to that subsidiary.
Among them is the current president of the Spanish Bank subsidiary, the leader in the Mexican market. They are counselors, among others, the president of BBVA, Carlos Torres, and the CEO, Onur Genç.
Martínez's most recent appointment, announced to the Mexican Stock Exchange in April, has been in Mexican Petrochemicals Alpek. In it, the maximum individual shareholder of Sabadell, which is a shareholder of the Spanish Bank since 2013, appears since this year as a “independent” counselor, according to the website of this Mexican company.
Alpek is one of the largest integrated producers of PTA and PET, with an installed capacity of more than 8 million tons. It is a split of the Alpha Food Group, owner of Sigma, which in 2015 took 100% of the Spanish Campofrío and which Martínez is also a counselor since 2010.
In the Board of Directors of Alpek, one of the nine “substitute advisors” (independent) of BBVA Mexico, Alejandro Mariano Werner Wainfield, has signed since 2023. Undersecretary of Finance and Public Credit During the stage of President Felipe Calderón (between December 2006 and August 2010), Werner, who is also the advisor of the Spanish Acting Energy, has a link with the bank that Carlos Torres chairs that comes from far behind.
Director of BBVA Mexico Since the late 2021, Werner joined BBVA-Bancomer in 2011, where he was General Director of Global Business and Corporate Banking and Investment until 2012. He was subsequently director of the Department of the Western Hemisphere of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) between 2013 and 2021.
His brother, Martín Werner, was also Undersecretary of the Treasury (1997-1999) and was in charge of the restructuring of Mexico's external public debt in the 1995-1995 crisis. Born in Argentina and raised in Mexico, where he was general director of Goldman Sachs, Martín Werner was for years independent counselor of the OMA airport operator, of which David Martínez's fund (Fintech) was a shareholder until 2022, when he sold his 29.9% to the French Vinci.
Another counselor of Alpek is one of Mexico's best known businessmen, the president of Alfa until 2024, Armando Garza Sada, who since 2018 is a “substitute” adviser BBVA Mexico. Natural de Monterrey (Nuevo León), as the still first shareholder of Sabadell, Garza Sada was also a member of the Board of Directors of the State Cemex cement. In this company, one of the most important in Mexico, David Martínez is, in turn, an independent advisor.
He is also an Alpek advisor since 2012 Francisco José Calderón Rojas, who According to the company's website It is “Regional Advisor” of BBVA Mexico, of which he was already advisor at the time when the president of the Spanish Bank was Francisco González.
An old investment by David Martínez Guzmán is the centennial Mexican window Vitro, in which he is one of the main shareholders. In it he has been advisor since 1998 Jaime Serra Puche, the current president of BBVA Mexico. Former Secretary of Income and former Secretary of Commerce and Finance of the Government of Mexico with Presidents Ernesto Zedillo and Carlos Salinas de Gortari, Jaime Serra presides BBVA Bancomer since 2018.
In Vitro is also advisor Mario Laborín, who was General Director of BBVA Bancomer, as his Advisor file In the Cabinet of the conservative Vicente Fox.
On Vitro's website is the Counselor's record of Ricardo Guajardo, who died last August at age 77. Guajardo was general director and president of BBVA Bancomer, whose board of directors was part until November 2023. Born in Monterrey, he graduated as an electrical engineer at the Technological and Higher Studies Institute of Monterrey, as did Sabadell's current first shareholder before considering ordering a priest in his youth.
David Martínez, who made fortune in its beginnings with debt restructuring from countries in difficulties, has channeled his participation in Sabadell from societies in the tax havens of British Virgin Islands and Belize. In his youth he was part of a group close to the legionaries of Christ, the ultra -Catholic order founded by the Mexican pederast cure Marcial Maciel, who had among his benefactors the great fortune Azteca, Carlos Slim, with whom he has been compared.
“Independent” with a 55 million package
The still advisor and first individual shareholder of Banco Sabadell also appears as a “independent” advisor to Alfa/Sigma, the Mexican food giant. According to the information available in the Luxembourg Mercantile Registry, one of Martínez's instrumental in the Great Ducado, Fintech Value, which controls through a company in Delaware, declared in its latest accounts presented (of 2024) a total of 90,104,414 shares (1.62% of the capital) of Alpha Sab of CV, which valued in books in about 55 million dollars.
In Alfa, he has also been a counselor since May 2024 Alejandra Palacios Prieto, who since last year is a “substitute” counselor of BBVA Mexico. Before joining the Mexican Office of the Cuatrecasas Spanish Office, Palacios presided over the Federal Economic Competition Commission (Cofece) of Mexico for eight years, the Mexican Antimonopoolia Agency, equivalent to the National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC) of Spain. She was the first woman to preside over this institution.
Another member of the Mexican business elite who sat on the council of Alfa until a few months ago is Javier Fernández Carbajal, also present at the Council of Busies such as the American multinational Visa. Fernández Carbajal is CEMEX advisor, such as David Martínez. “He held positions in Grupo Financiero BBVA Mexico SA DE CV, including Vice President of Strategic Planning, President of Systems and Operations, Director of Finance and General Director,” explains the giant cement on its website.
In CEMEX he is also advisor Everardo Elizondo, former subgovernor of the Bank of Mexico, who was director of Studies in Alfa and BBVA Mexico.
Martínez's decision to accept the BBVA OPA has been a blow to Sabadell's strategy, although he has not caught by surprise the rest of the advisors of the Vallelesan entity. Martínez has unmarked from the maximum management body of the Catalan Bank, which on Tuesday again voted against the offer despite the improvement of 10% raised by BBVA, which has convinced the Mexican.
The same Tuesday, the president of the BBVA said in statements sent to the media that “the decision of the counselor David Martínez to go to the OPA is a clear sample of the enormous attraction of both the offer and the union project with BBVA, in front of the Sabadell Bank project in solo. And it is especially relevant because it is one of the largest shareholders of Banco Sabadell, with almost 4% of the actions and member for years. Shareholders also come to the offer.