(Bloomberg) -- Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas is defiant as ever, plotting his next moves after clashes with the government and a plunge in his net worth.
In an interview, he said his plan to delist his flagship company, Grupo Elektra SAB, will get his businesses away from public markets and let him run the conglomerate as he sees fit. He said he’ll get it done by around May, in part because only 0.3% of shares remain outstanding.
“In spite of all the problems in Mexico, our businesses are doing well,” he said in the Feb. 26 interview in one of his offices in southern Mexico City. “I’m free to do my stuff now.”
Going private may be a chance for Salinas, 69, to start fresh, but he’s still facing some lingering challenges. He’s locked in a legal battle with the government over taxes and trying to claw back money lost as the victim of an alleged loan scam. He’s closely watching Mexico’s trade negotiations with the US, with positive words for how new President Claudia Sheinbaum is contending with Donald Trump’s tariff plans.
“It’s been a couple of months and she’s suddenly facing a very challenging situation with these Trump threats,” he said. “She’s trying to appease Mr. Trump’s demands that the border be controlled and that the flow of drugs be controlled. So I think she’s trying hard, but it’s a difficult position.”
Last year, Elektra asked the stock exchange to suspend trading so it could stop a lender to Salinas from selling shares he had offered as collateral for a loan. Salinas later produced evidence in court filings that he had been misled by the lender, which had taken possession of around $400 million worth of stock and wasn’t returning it. He now blames an adviser for not vetting the lender properly. (The lender has denied wrongdoing.)
When trading resumed late last year, shares in Grupo Elektra sank 70%, wiping out some $5 billion of his fortune. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index currently pegs his net worth at $5.8 billion.
Pending cases in front of Mexico’s Supreme Court are also a headache for Salinas. The Mexican government says his companies owe 63 billion pesos ($3 billion) in taxes. Salinas argues he has been double-billed and shouldn’t have to pay for the cumulative penalties he has incurred while he contests the case.
“I’m going to keep fighting,” he said. “I’m willing to pay one or the other. I’m not paying twice.”
Salinas is a legendary figure in Mexico as much for his public clashes and legal battles as for his business prowess. He took the business established by his grandfather and converted it into an empire by extending credit at interest rates that could surpass triple digits so that low-income shoppers could buy big-ticket items like refrigerators and big-screen TVs. He acquired a TV network, made telecommunications investments and founded a bank through the network of Elektra stores.
Grupo Elektra’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization rose 57% last quarter from a year earlier, lifted by higher sales in the banking unit and lower costs. The company had to take a non-cash charge to reflect the decline in value of derivatives tied to its stock price, leading to a net loss.
Not much will change when Elektra leaves the public market, Salinas said. If he needs to raise money, he’ll seek partners instead of raising debt or equity.
“We’ll just reorganize the group in different units, and if we see a chance to do a joint venture with somebody or bring new money for some specific program, we’ll do that. But not right now. I don’t need it,” he said.
Salinas was optimistic about Elektra’s ability to weather competition from the rush of financial technology companies expanding in Mexico, including Nu Holdings Ltd., the digital bank that has taken Brazil by storm but still hasn’t broken even in Mexico.
“We’re the kings of small loans,” he said. “I have a saying from a long time ago that any idiot will make a loan. It’s a different thing to collect it.”
Outside of the companies he owns — including the broadcaster TV Azteca and internet provider Total Play Telecomunicaciones — Salinas prefers investing in what he calls the hardest assets — Bitcoin and gold.
“I’ve got about 70% in Bitcoin-related exposure and 30% in gold and gold miners,” he said. “I don’t have a single bond and I don’t have any other stocks except my own.”
Bitcoin is one of Salinas’ favorite topics on social media, where he’s built a follower count of more than 2 million on X as one of Mexico’s few right-wing superstars.
On social media he’s known as “Tio Richie,” or “Uncle Rich,” a flashy personality who shows off his yacht and helicopter and delivers profanity-laden invectives against leftists, public officials and journalists. To Salinas, this is part of his fight for the future of Mexico, where the ruling party founded by former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has trounced centrists and the right wing.
“I am very much aware that the opposition is ineffective and they don’t have a real purpose, so something needs to be done,” he said. “We’re thinking about that.”
Salinas’ social-media persona went from a run-of-the-mill corporate account to a must-follow during the depths of the pandemic, when he bristled at government shutdowns and ordered his employees to continue working. He was close to Lopez Obrador at the beginning of his term, but the relationship soured as the administration pressed on with its tax claims.
“The government and the state is an obstruction to all kinds of individual actions,” Salinas said. “And I believe that we gotta get rid of all those obstacles and all those obstructions and let the people be, and let the people free to do what they need to do, which is get on with their lives and produce value.”
Salinas has founded schools in some of Mexico’s largest cities to give more young people a quality education. In 2023, his Universidad de la Libertad opened its doors, offering courses on business skills and leadership.
His top ask is for the government to improve “the rule of law and security and justice for everyday people.” He pointed to Mexico’s homicide rate as unacceptable and proposed taking the hard-line approach of El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, who jailed tens of thousands of alleged gang members, reduced the murder rate and has become one of the world’s most popular leaders.
“I would apply the Bukele model. Designate them as terrorists,” he said. “And anybody who’s caught being part of a gang gets 40 years in confinement.”
He effusively praised Argentine President Javier Milei as the type of outsider the country has needed to usher in change. “He was an academic — it’s almost an act of God that he’s there. He has inspired me,” he said.
Still, he said it was far too soon to make any decisions about whether he might compete in the next presidential election in Mexico in 2030. “It would be a big change in my life and I’m not sure I want to go that way,”
Besides, there are other ways to influence society, he said.
“I’m 100% in politics because I’m selling ideas and I’m criticizing bad ideas, and I’m promoting good ideas,” he said.
