Crying out for corporate funding
One mid-sized bank regarded as doing well, and not likely to embrace a foreign partner soon is Monterrey-based Banorte. It has 174 branches and a deposit base of over $2.3 billion and is in the process of taking control of two smaller banks, Mexico City-based Banpais and Banco del Central.
Banorte has been able to control its own destiny thanks to shareholders willing to provide three capital injections since its 1992 privatization and a lower exposure to problem loans resulting from the peso crisis. "Banorte was focused on the northern industrial sector, including the maqilladoras[assembly firms serving the US market] and not on the small and medium firms and retail mortgage sector which have caused other banks so much trouble," said Santander Investment banking analyst Patrick Boucher. "It emerged from the crisis in much better shape."
The acquisitions of Banpais and Bancen will enable Banorte to add another 237 branches to its network, and enable it to keep pace with the retail deposit-raising power of its bigger competitors.
But even though Banorte is performing solidly - perhaps because of this - there are rumours that it might take on a foreign equity partner.