Is Mexican Billionaire In Negotiation With Troubled Brazilian Group

Mexican billionaireRicardo Salinas, owner of one of Mexico’s largest electronics retailers, is reportedly negotiating buying a chain of stores belonging to the troubled Grupo Silvio Santos, according to Brazilian media reports.
Grupo Silvio Santos’ woes are recent. In November Brazil’s Central Bank launched a fraud probe into Banco PanAmericano, of which the Silvio Santos Group is a controlling stakeholder, after discovering “accounting inconsistencies” during a routine check-up.
To save the bank, the group, founded by entrepreneur Silvio Santos (born Senor Abravanel), placed all its assets as collateral to a $1.5 billion loan from a group of private banks.
Santos, a household name in Brazil, has hosted his own weekend shows since 1961 while building an empire extending across Brazil’s media, finance and retail sectors.
The multimillionaire has never made it to the rungs of billionaires and the prospect that he will one day appears to have vanished. According to the Economist, he has stated that he is prepared to sell his empire — save for the TV station he stars in — to pay off his group’s debt.
The chain of stores Salinas is reportedly negotiating for is estimated to be worth around $88 million, according to Brazilian newspaper O Estado de São Paulo, hardly enough to pay the group’s debt.
Salinas isn’t the only billionaire who could lend a helping hand to Grupo Silvio Santos: Brazil’s richest man, Eike Batista, whose interests in Brazil seem to keep multiplying, has reportedly expressed interest in looking into buying Banco PanAmericano.
Article via Forbes