Itau Has No Plans to Bid for Citigroup Mexico Unit
Itau Has No Plans to Bid for Citigroup Mexico Unit
(Bloomberg) -- Itau Unibanco Holding SA has no plans in bidding for Citigroup Inc.’s retail-banking operations in Mexico, according to people familiar to the matter.
Analysts including Morgan Stanley’s Jorge Kuri wrote on Wednesday Itau could be interested, and Itau’s former chief executive officer and current Co-Chairman Roberto Setubal had said back in 2014 the Sao Paulo-based bank would consider a retail business in Mexico. But the situation now for Itau is different, and so are the plans, the people said.
Itau declined to comment.
“Our focus nowadays is to improve operations where we already have one,” Itau CEO Milton Maluhy said In June 2021 during the firm’s investor day. “Investing in places where we already have relevant operations but without an ambition to grow beyond what we have today.”
Citigroup announced Tuesday that it’s planning to exit its consumer, small-business and middle-market banking operations in Mexico as Chief Executive Officer Jane Fraser overhauls the New York-based firm’s strategy. In Mexico, the exit of the deposit-taking business could take the form of a sale or public-market alternative, said Citigroup, which will keep its institutional businesses in the country.
In June 2016, less than two years after expanding its operations in Mexico, Itau reached an agreement to sell its brokerage and focus on Latin American countries where it has a bigger presence amid a slump in equity sales. Also in 2016, the Brazilian bank cut its corporate and investment banking presence there.
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