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Grupo Financiero Banamex has its origins and is the owner of Banco Nacional de México or Banamex, Mexico's largest bank. The Banamex Financial Group was purchased by Citigroup in August 2001 for $12.5 billion USD. It continues to operate as a Citigroup subsidiary.

Some Statistics for Grupo Financiero Banamex:

Banco Nacional de Mexico (Bank):

• 1,233 Branches
• 28,759 Branch Employees
• 4,492 ATMs
• 7.9 million Credit Cards
• 2.6 million Checking Accounts
• 20.52% of the Assets in the Mexican Banking System

Seguros Banamex (Insurance):

• 5th Place among Mexican Insurers

Afore Banamex (Pension Funds):

• 1st in Pension Funds
• Over 4 million strong in affiliates

Accival - Acciones y Valores de México (Brokerage House):

• Top Brokerage of the country
• 16% of the assets

Grupo Financiero Banamex has presence in the main towns and cities of all the states of Mexico.

History

Banamex was formed on June 2 1884 from the merger of two banks, Banco Nacional Mexicano Bank and Banco Mercantil Mexicano, two banks that had operated since the beginning of 1882. The newly founded bank had branches in Mérida, Veracruz, Puebla, Guanajuato and San Luis Potosi, and opened a branch in Guadalajara.

In 1916, General Pancho Villa’s revolution interrupted the bank’s role as banknote issuer for the Porfirio Diaz regime.

The bank was reorganized in 1926, becoming a financing bank and establishing the first agency of a Latin American bank in New York.

Banamex gradually introduced several financial product innovations to the Mexican market including savings accounts (in 1929), personal credit lines (in 1958), credit cards (in 1968), and ATM banking (in 1972).

In 1981, California Commerce Bank was acquired by Banamex.

In the midst of a severe economic crisis (1982), President José López Portillo announced a major devaluation of the peso and a nationalized all private banks in Mexico. For the next 9 years Banamex operates as a government owned national credit association.

In 1991, Banamex was reprivatized and it established Grupo Financiero Banamex–Accival with the investment bank Acciones y Valores de México (Accival). For the next four years Banamex and the rest of the Mexican private banks presided over an unprecedented expansion of private credit in Mexico. This expansion occurred in an environment characterized by: i) the lack of a credit culture at the newly privatized banks, which had been bought at rich multiples by individuals and organizations without lending experience, and ii) lax oversight by regulatory authorities, which led in some instances to the occurrence of irregular transactions (such as related party transactions).

The result of this aggressive expansion of credit was to strain the bank's balance sheet (loan portfolio quality ratios and capitalization ratios). The December 1994 macro-devaluation of the Mexican Pesos (see the December Mistake) and the ensuing significant increase in domestic interest rates coupled with a dramatic economic recession, caused Banamex's and much of the rest of the privatized banks to essentially become insolvent.

In order to avoid the potentially catastrophic effects of generalized bank bankruptcies, the Ernesto Zedillo administration decides to rescue the troubled banks through a government fund (Instituto de Protección al Ahorro Bancario orIPAB, later called Fondo Bancario de Protección al Ahorro or Fobaproa). IPAB enticed the banks' shareholders to inject fresh equity into the banks by pledging to buy from the banks non-performing loans ("cartera vencida") in a two to one (or in some cases greater) ratio with respect to the newly injected fresh capital in exchange for a long-dated government note with capitalized interest.

Banamex eventually sold $_ worth of non-performing loans to IPAB, and its shareholders injected $_ of fresh equity. The combination of these measures coupled with a recovery of the Mexican economy helped clean-up the bank's balance sheet.

From 1997 to 2001 Roberto Hernández Ramírez was the CEO. In 1997 Afore Banamex was created to tap into the newly created private pension fund market.

On August 6, 2001, Citigroup Inc. acquired Grupo Financiero Banamex-Accival for US$12.5 billion, which became Grupo Financiero Banamex. This was the largest-ever U.S.-Mexico corporate merger. Grupo Financiero Banamex's operations were integrated with Citibank's relatively small existing Mexico business under the Banamex brand name. This move has caused large controversy in Mexico due to the bought of many national banks by overseas companies. Manuel Medina Mora current CEO of Latin America.

Subsidiaries

The following are subsidiaries of Grupo Financiero Banamex:

• Banamex
• Fondos Horizontes Banamex http://www.fondoshorizontes.com & http://www.fondoshorizontes.com.mx
• Brokerage House Accival http://www.accival.com.mx
• AcciTrade http://www.accitrade.com http://www.accitrade.com.mx
• Seguros Banamex
• Afore Banamex
• Inteligia, joint venture with Accenture to provide software outsourcing

See Also

• 1884 in Mexico

External links

• Web site
• English web site

v t e Citigroup
People	Michael E. O'Neill Vikram Pandit Richard Parsons William R. Rhodes Lewis B. Kaden Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud John Havens
Brands and companies	Current Banamex Citibank Citigold Citi Private Bank Egg Metalmark Capital Red Roof Inn Former ClearBridge Investments Court Square Capital Partners CVC Capital Partners Diners Club International Morgan Stanley Wealth Management OneMain Financial Primerica The Travelers Companies
Notable former executives	Winfried Bischoff Michael Bloomberg Gary Crittenden Jamie Dimon Ahmed Fahour Stanley Fischer Lewis Glucksman Thomas W. Jones Sallie Krawcheck Victor Menezes George S. Moore Samuel Osgood Joe J. Plumeri Chuck Prince John Reed Robert Rubin James Stillman Rockefeller William Rockefeller Moses Taylor Sandy Weill Robert B. Willumstad Walter Wriston
Corporate directors	Michael Armstrong Alain Belda George David Kenneth T. Derr John M. Deutch Roberto Hernández Ramírez Manolo Falcó Jane Fraser Ann Jordan Klaus Kleinfeld Andrew N. Liveris Anne Mulcahy Richard Parsons Chuck Prince Judith Rodin Robert Rubin Franklin A. Thomas Sandy Weill
Local entities	Argentina Australia Bahrain Canada China Colombia Europe Hong Kong India Indonesia Japan South Korea Malaysia Mexico Philippines Russia Singapore Thailand Taiwan [zh] Uganda United Arab Emirates United States of America Vietnam
Predecessors	ACC Capital California Federal Bank Franklin National Bank
Headquarters: 388 Greenwich Street, New York City, New York 10043, United States Category

• Citigroup
• Banks of Mexico