MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexico’s Grupo Financiero Banorte is open to all options for growth, its CEO said on Thursday, when asked if the financial services group was still interested in buying Citibanamex, Citigroup’s Mexican retail bank.
Banorte is committed to growth and providing more value to shareholders, CEO Jose Marcos Ramirez Miguel told a press conference called to discuss the bank’s quarterly results.
“We’re looking to grow organically,” said Ramirez Miguel, adding that Banorte would consider “other ways of growing operations that give value to shareholders.”
“All options are open,” the CEO said, in response to a question about its interest in staying in the Citibanamex sale process.
Banorte had first flagged its interest in Citibanamex in April, when Ramirez Miguel said the bank was in talks about Citibanamex.
Banorte reported earlier on Thursday a 34% increase in its quarterly profit to 11.5 billion pesos ($572 million) from the year-ago period, boosted by an acceleration in credit demand in all products.
Revenue for the group, which owns one of the country’s largest banks, totaled 28.5 billion pesos in the second quarter, up 21% from a year earlier.
The bank said the positive results came despite a challenging macroeconomic environment, with low economic growth expectations, inflationary pressures, restrictive monetary policies and an uncertain international outlook.
“Credit demand accelerated across all products, despite a restrictive rate cycle, and maintained sound risk metrics, that continue to perform ahead of our expectations,” the bank said in its report.
($1 = 20.1353 pesos at end-June)
(Reporting by Carolina Pulice, Kylie Madry and Noe Torres; Editing by Christian Plumb and Muralikumar Anantharaman)
