Yahoo Finance Mexican Family Worth $4 Billion Ramps Up Bet on Chicago Lender
(Bloomberg) -- The family behind one of Mexico’s biggest diversified fortunes is ramping up its long-term wager on a US regional bank, joining a wave of the nation’s super-rich expanding their overseas investments.
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Antonio Del Valle Perochena and his family have built a roughly $250 million stake in the owner of Chicago’s Byline Bank, according to regulatory filings, repeatedly snapping up stock over the past year or so even as the US lender’s shares have whipsawed.
The Del Valles are already Byline Bancorp Inc.’s largest shareholder, with their 26.7% stake the biggest US asset in their roughly $4 billion fortune, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Other assets include Mexican bank Ve Por Mas and chemicals giant Orbia Advance Corp.
“We always invest as one in what we consider core to us,” Del Valle, 55, chairman of his family’s Kaluz holding company, said in e-mailed comments. “Byline is core.”
The Del Valles’ buying spree coincides with a strengthening peso against the US dollar, making it easier for Mexican investors to acquire assets outside the country. Carlos Slim, Mexico’s richest person, increased his stake last month in Spanish real estate firm Realia Business SA, while the billionaire family behind Jose Cuervo tequila recently added to its real estate investments in the US.
The so-called super peso has also helped turbocharge the ranks of Mexico’s mega-rich, including the Del Valles. Their fortune has more than doubled since early 2020, with almost half their wealth now tied up in Mexico City-based chemicals manufacturer Orbia, according to Bloomberg’s wealth index.
The family has disclosed more than 20 purchases of Byline’s stock since late 2022, including as recently as last month. This marks the first time they’ve built up their stake since the lender began trading publicly in 2017, filings show.
Byline is “a balance to their various other international investments,” said Nathan Race, a senior equity research analyst focusing on financial services at Piper Sandler & Co.
Read More: Mexico’s Billionaires Piled Up Riches as AMLO Raged Against Them
‘Good Franchise’
The Del Valle family started building their fortune in the 1970s through a bank they later had to turn over to the Mexican government as part of an industry-wide nationalization. Led by Antonio Del Valle’s namesake father, they invested part of the proceeds from that deal into the chemicals sector and construction. They returned to Mexico’s banking industry in the early 1990s as part of a privatization drive.
The financial crisis prompted them to start looking at US lenders. After analyzing around two dozen community banks, they bought into Byline’s predecessor, Metropolitan Bank Group, in 2013. A firm Del Valle controls, MBG Investors I LP, took the lead in the bank’s recapitalization, according to filings. He joined the board along with his partner at the time, Roberto Herencia, who remains chairman.
The Chicago lender’s total assets surpassed $9 billion in the first quarter, according to its earnings report last week, almost double the level of five years ago. Shareholder equity exceeded $1 billion, the first time it’s been that high in at least a decade.
Byline’s stock rose 3.3% Friday after the report, bringing its total gain since its 2017 IPO to 15%. While that lags the Russell 2000 Index over the same period, it’s better than many of its small-cap financial peers.
Del Valle, a former ING Groep NV executive, remains bullish on the bank.
“Every investment we make is focused on the long term,” he said. “We think Byline has a very good franchise.”
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