Germán Larrea: how much did the fortunes of Mexico's second richest businessman increase in the last year

A couple of weeks ago, the American financial magazine Forbes, released its annual ranking where it lists the wealthiest people around the world. In it, Forbes announced that worldwide there were 2,668 billionaires, that is, 87 fewer than 2021, when 2,755 were counted. Of these, 15 are Mexican.

The ranking was led by the businessman of South African origin, with American nationality Elon Musk, who has a fortune of USD 219 thousand millions. In second place worldwide, is businessman Jeff Bezos, who is the founder of Amazon and who has a fortune of $171 billion.

In Mexico, these two positions are held by Carlos Slim Helú and businessman Germán Larrea. Slim Helú, according to Forbes, reached a fortune of USD 81.2 billion, which also places him in the 13th position worldwide, surpassing other tycoons in the world such as Mark Zuckerberg, owner of Meta, a company to which social networks such as Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram belong.

Slim managed to accumulate his fortune in a considerable way, since the magnate, in the 2021 ranking, had a fortune of USD 55,930 million.

Germán Larrea Mota Velasco, for his part, is the second wealthiest person in the country, a place he has occupied for several years. Larrea owns the conglomerate Grupo México, a company he inherited from his father, and currently has a fortune, according to Forbes, of USD 30,800 million.

This means that, compared to a year ago, Larrea managed to increase her fortune, since in 2021 she had a fortune of USD 27,100 million. Larrea, with this, increased his fortune by USD 3.7 billion.

Germán Larrea's father, Jorge Larrea, who died in 1999, left his son a solid foundation to achieve what he has today. Larrea Ortega began his career as a businessman in the six-year term of former president Miguel Alemán Valdez, who was president of the country from 1946 to 1952. It was during this period that he started his own construction company called Construcciones Jorge Larrea, which would later take the name Mexico Constructora Industrial, S.A. de C.V.

Later Larrea Ortega met Italian-American businessman Bruno Pagliai, who at that time was considered the richest man in our country, becoming his legal front in matters related to the pipe business in Veracruz, Tubos de Acero de México, S.A de C.V., known as TAMSA.

It was through this relationship that Larrea Ortega became a shareholder in that company, and began his rise in the metallurgical and steel sector. At that time, Pagliai presented Larrea Ortega with what would later become his greatest passion: horses and riding. The Italian-American businessman had just ordered the construction of the Hippodrome of the Americas, to the west of Mexico City, at the insistence of Presidents Manuel Ávila Camacho and Alemán Valdés.

In 1962, 12 business leaders from Mexico, including Pagliai and Larrea Ortega, founded the Mexican Council of Businessmen, which has historically included the richest families in Mexico.

By 1965, Larrea Ortega led a group of investors in the partial acquisition of Mexican properties from the American Smelting and Refining Company and a partial acquisition of the La Caridad copper mine, this after mining laws favored Mexican-owned companies.

He later added more properties to mining construction, finance and railways to his group, while extending from mining and refining, to wire and some other copper products. But it was during the six-year term of former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, between 1988 and 1994, that Larrea Ortega's wealth rose dramatically, after the Cananea mining company, which later became the Mexico Group, bought, in 1988, the government shares of the Quebrada Mina de La Caridad, at an exceptionally low price of $680 million, and won the bid for La Cananea, the largest copper company in Mexico, paying only $475 million, again well below the market price.

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