Finance
Citi to turn to more minority investors after Banamex stake sale
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on September 25, 2025
3 min readLast updated: January 21, 2026
Global Banking & Finance Review®
Company
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on September 25, 2025
3 min readLast updated: January 21, 2026
Citi seeks minority investors for Banamex before a potential IPO, following a $2.3 billion stake sale to Chico Pardo. Banamex aims to regain market share.
By Kylie Madry
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Citigroup will look for more minority investors in its Mexican retail unit, Banamex, before launching a potential initial public offering, executives said on Thursday.
Citi will sound out top Mexican investors in the coming months, though it will look to sell stakes much smaller than the 25% that billionaire Fernando Chico Pardo will buy, Ernesto Torres, Citi's head of international, told journalists.
The lender announced on Wednesday that Chico Pardo, who chairs airport operator ASUR, would purchase the sizeable stake in Banamex for $2.3 billion.
STEP TOWARD BANAMEX EXIT
The deal comes after Citi struggled for years to find a buyer for Banamex, with a deal with conglomerate Grupo Mexico, controlled by billionaire German Larrea, falling through.
Analysts saw the announcement as a positive step toward Citigroup's complete divestment from Banamex.
The price of the stake values the full unit at around $9.12 billion, effectively creating a "floor" for an IPO, they said. Citi bought Banamex in a $12.5 billion deal in 2001.
"At least it gives clarity on how much a full divestiture could raise," said Mike Mayo, Wells Fargo's bank analyst, in a phone interview.
When asked by Reuters, Torres declined to provide more detail on Citi's decision to accept an offer below book value.
BANAMEX BACK IN MEXICAN HANDS
Locally, Chico Pardo's purchase was cheered, with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum praising the bank's return to Mexican hands after decades of foreign control.
Sheinbaum's predecessor and mentor, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, put conditions on any Citi deal, such as requiring the firm be majority controlled by Mexicans and prohibiting layoffs.
That interference led to Larrea scrapping his Banamex offer, sources told Reuters at the time. Sheinbaum, however, did not place any conditions, Chico Pardo said.
The businessman said that his purchase was self-funded and he would not look to grow his stake beyond the 25%.
"I consider this a very long-term investment, a transgenerational one. My children are going to have to carry this on," he said.
Chico Pardo admitted that he had not participated in the first round of bidding for the unit, as he "didn't understand it," but began talks with Citi in the past several months.
The businessman is married to the sister of Roberto Hernandez, the former owner and CEO of Banamex.
NEXT FOR BANAMEX
Chico Pardo and Manuel Romo, CEO of Banamex, said that Banamex is now looking to take back some of the market share it lost.
The unit holds around 6% of total loans in Mexico, compared to its peak of 18% in 2009 when it was operating as Citibanamex, Goldman Sachs analysts said.
Banamex plans to grow through expanding its online offerings and boosting its client service, executives said.
"There are plenty of areas where we still haven't made headway, in terms of financial services," Chico Pardo said.
While executives largely declined to speak about a potential IPO on Thursday, analysts estimated that the timeline could be mid- to late-2026 instead of at the beginning of the year as previously expected.
The deal with Chico Pardo raises equity similar to the first share sale in an IPO, Bank of America analyst Ebrahim Poonawala noted, as Citi had estimated it would sell 15% to 20% in the first transaction.
(Reporting by Kylie Madry in Mexico City; Additional reporting by Tatiana Bautzer and Saeed Azhar in New York; Editing by Aida Pelaez-Fernandez, Hugh Lawson and Cynthia Osterman)
Billionaire Fernando Chico Pardo is purchasing a 25% stake in Banamex for $2.3 billion.
Chico Pardo's purchase is seen as a positive step toward Citigroup's complete divestment from Banamex, marking a return of the bank to Mexican hands.
Banamex plans to regain market share by expanding its online offerings and improving client service.
Analysts estimate that the potential IPO could occur in mid- to late-2026, later than previously expected.
Conditions from Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador required that the firm be majority controlled by Mexicans and prohibited layoffs, which led to previous offers being scrapped.
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