Germán Larrea Mota-Velasco (born 1953/1954) is a Mexican billionaire businessman. He is the CEO of Grupo México, Mexico’s largest mining corporation, and the third largest copper producer in the world. As of July 2022, his net worth was estimated at US$24.6 billion.
The majority of German Larrea’s fortune is derived from his family’s 60% stake in publicly traded Grupo Mexico, a mining conglomerate founded by his father, Jorge.
The billionaire serves as company chairman and owns a 19% stake directly, according to its 2022 annual report. His family’s holding company Empresarios Industriales de Mexico owns another 40.6%, according to the annual report.
He also holds a less than 1% direct stake at Southern Copper Corp., according to a July 31, 2023 regulatory filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Larrea spent $315 million in 2008 to acquire Grupo Cinemex, which controlled 42% of Mexico’s movie theater market in 2015. Company revenue is calculated to be about 4.6 billion pesos ($230 million) in 2022, based on an analysis of national ticket sales and market share data compiled by Canacine, a Mexican industry association. It’s valued using the average enterprise value-to-sales of three publicly traded cinema companies: Cinemark, AMC Entertainment, and Cineplex.
The value of his cash investments is based on an analysis of dividends, insider transactions, taxes and market performance.
Diana Luna, a spokesperson for Grupo Mexico, didn’t respond to requests for comment on the net wealth calculation.
Biography
Education: Anahuac University
German Larrea is the only surviving son of Jorge Larrea, who was known as Mexico’s copper king until his death in 1999. The patriarch’s Grupo Mexico empire began with a construction business that he founded in 1942. He expanded into mining in the decades that followed, buying copper-mining assets from the Mexican government during a privatization sale that began in the late 1980s. He first listed his holding company on the Mexico City exchange in 1978.
German Larrea took the reins of a newly reorganized Grupo Mexico in 1994. The company’s shares have increased 25-fold under his watch. His $2.2 billion acquisition of Tucson, Arizona-based Asarco in 1999 gave him a stake in Southern Copper, which is now Grupo Mexico’s largest asset. In recent years, the press-shy Larrea family has been embroiled in a series of legal battles with minority shareholders, other companies and striking labor unions.
Career
Larrea Mota-Velasco has been chairman, president and CEO of Grupo Mexico since 1994. He was previously executive vice chairman of Grupo Mexico and has been a director since 1981.
He has served as chairman of the Southern Copper Corporation since December 1999, CEO from December 1999 to October 2004, and as a director since November 1999. He has been chairman and CEO of Grupo Ferroviario Mexicano since 1997. He has been chairman and CEO of Empresarios Industriales de Mexico, Compania Perforadora Mexico, Mexico Compania Constructora, and Fondo Inmobiliario since 1992.
He founded Grupo Impresa, a printing and publishing company in 1978, remaining as the chairman and CEO until 1989, when the company was sold. He is also a director of Banco Nacional de Mexico, which forms part of Grupo Financiero Banamex, Consejo Mexicano de Hombres de Negocios, and Grupo Televisa.
According to Forbes, in February 2020 he is worth US$14.3 billion, and the second richest man in Mexico, after Carlos Slim.
In November 2020, Larrea Mota-Velasco sold 100,000 shares in Southern Copper Corporation for a total price of $6 million, meaning he now owns a stake in the company worth almost $121 million.
Milestones
- 1906 Company’s Cananea mine has endured labor strikes since 1906.
- 1988 Buys Mexicana de Cobre copper interest from the government.
- 1990 Purchases the Cananea mine, also privatized by the government.
- 1994 German takes the reins of what is now called Grupo Mexico.
- 1999 Buys Asarco for $2.2 billion, taking a stake in Southern Copper.
- 1999 Jorge Larrea dies; his widow Sara Mota inherits his stake.
- 2005 Asarco goes bankrupt.
- 2009 Asarco emerges from bankruptcy and Grupo Mexico regains control.
