Sheinbaum meets with Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser

President Claudia Sheinbaum discussed opportunities for collaboration with Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser connected Monday, including ways the slope tin enactment the Mexican president’s economical improvement initiatives. 

Fraser was joined by Ernesto Torres Cantú, Citi’s caput of international, arsenic portion of her circuit of nations where the multinational concern slope and fiscal services institution operates.

Sheinbaum posted a little connection connected societal media, lauding the slope executive’s “intelligence” and the “big opportunities” awaiting Mexico. (Claudia Sheinbaum/X)

“It’s ever an grant and a privilege to chat with President Sheinbaum, to explicit the assurance that some Citi and Banamex person successful the country’s perspectives, and to corroborate our committedness to Mexico,” Fraser said successful a statement.

Sheinbaum posted a little connection connected societal media, lauding the slope executive’s “intelligence” and the “big opportunities” awaiting Mexico. Fraser described the gathering arsenic productive, noting discussions connected “a assortment of projects that beforehand economical maturation and equitable societal development.”

Their statements made nary notation of Citi’s projected archetypal nationalist offering (IPO) of Banamex, its retail banking limb that it separated from connected Dec. 1, 2024, aft operating arsenic Citibanamex for implicit 20 years.

Citigroup’s determination to merchantability Banamex successful precocious 2024 was portion of the sweeping overhaul undertaken by CEO Fraser to amended the bank’s performance.

Citi acquired Banamex, 1 of Mexico’s oldest and astir prestigious slope brands, for US $12.5 cardinal successful 2001. According to the paper The Financial Times, Citibanamex struggled to vie successful a marketplace dominated by different overseas lenders and fell from  Mexico’s second-largest slope to its 4th owed to mediocre management, bloated costs and U.S. regulatory constraints.  

In January 2022, Citigroup began efforts to merchantability Banamex and astir closed a US $7 cardinal deal with Grupo México — a conglomerate owned by Mexican billionaire German Larrea — successful February 2023.

The transaction fizzled successful May 2023 aft then-President Andrés Manuel López Obrador interfered, complicating the process by requiring pro-labor concessions, specified arsenic demanding layoff protections for workers. 

Following Citi’s determination to prosecute an IPO alternatively of selling Banamex outright, López Obrador floated the thought that the Mexican authorities would participate the bidding process if nary different woody materialized. The authorities scuttled that idea conscionable a fewer months late, opting for a “different path” without providing further details.

On April 6, the Federal Finance Ministry authorized the instauration of Citi México arsenic the bank’s caller fiscal group. Grupo Financiero Citi México, its authoritative name, volition oversee the slope and its brokerage operations successful Mexico.

With reports from El Economista and El Universal