Ricardo Salinas Pliego

Chairman and founder of Grupo Salinas, the conglomerate that owns the second largest broadcasting company in the country: TV Azteca. With a fortune of 11.2 billion dollars, Ricardo Benjamín Salinas Pliego is the third richest Mexican according to the ranking of the magazine Forbes of 2019. Unlike other businessmen of the list, he is the only one whose fortune keeps rising: in 2018 it increased 36%.

In 2016, Salinas Pliego was associated with the Panamanian company Mossack Fonseca, protagonist in the findings of the Panama Papers. On the other hand, Grupo Elektra S.A.B. de C.V. was the company with the best performance in the Mexican Stock Exchange in the first four months of 2017 (its shares shot up 168%), according to Bloomberg, thanks to an instrument for creating share scarcity. The company denied the accusation. Approximately 30% of Elektra is the property of Comunicaciones Avanzadas S.A. de C.V., the main shareholder of T.V. Azteca S.A.B. de C.V.

“Its activities are focused on creating businesses with added value, rapid growth, and efficient management schemes”, claims Salinas’ profile on the Grupo Salinas website. The latter centralizes the broadcasting company, two trading companies, one trading subsidiary, banks, non-profit foundations, and various financial services, telecommunications, and specialized trading companies.

TV Azteca was the second largest beneficiary of official advertising expenditure in 2013-2016. The broadcasting company received 10.6% of more than $36 Billion 261 Million MXN spent by the government of former President Enrique Peña Nieto in this sector, concluded Fundar, Research and Analysis Center, in its report “Counting the good costs a lot”. 

Since López Obrador became president much has been talked about his relationship with Salinas Pliego. He is a member of the Business Advisory Council created by the Mexican president, which also includes figures such as Olegario Vázquez Aldir, general director of Grupo Imagen Multimedia, and Bernardo Gómez, executive co-president of Grupo Televisa. In addition, Banco Azteca, owned by Salinas Pliego, is one of the financial entities chosen by the new government to distribute the economic support of its social programs. A few days later, however, the president announced his decision to cancel a mining project in Baja California Sur, which had been granted to a mining company from Salinas Pliego.