Alberto Bailleres Net Worth & Biography

Alberto Bailleres was a Mexican billionaire who once owned the largest refined silver company in the world. He was 90 years old when he died on February 2, 2022, according to a statement from his business group, the Grupo Bal SA.

Mr. Bailleres is remembered as a visionary businessman and exemplary leader who triumphed and exceeded his goals. His vast mining wealth earned him the nickname Mexico’s “King Midas” or “King of Silver”, and he was listed by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index as Mexico’s fourth-richest person with a net worth of $19.3 billion in October 2012. He held stakes in retail, insurance, and financial companies, and was known for shunning the media. In April 2021, amid the covid pandemic, the business magnate stepped down from the seat of the president of the five main companies comprising Grupo Bal, including luxury department store Palacio de Hierro, pension fund manager Profuturo, insurance company Grupo Nacional Provincial or GNP, Industrias Penoles SAB — once the world’s top producer of refined silver, and miner Fresnillo PLC. He was replaced by one of his seven children, Alejandro Bailleres, who was already on the main company’s board of directors.

Early Life: Childhood, Education

Bailleres was born on August 22, 1931, in Mexico City, Mexico. His family came from Guanajuato, where they managed cattle ranches since the 19th century. His father, Raul Bailleres, left Guanajuato for Mexico City in 1914 in search of better opportunities at the age of 19. He fell from a staircase and died in 1967, and left his son a group of fifteen companies specialized in banking, chemicals, retail, mining, insurance, real estate, soft drinks, and a malt factory.

He attended Culver Military Academy in Indiana, United States. He later studied economics and was a chairman of the board of trustees and patron at his alma mater, Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico (ITAM) for more than three decades. The prestigious university, which was founded by his father, has trained prominent technocrats and businesspeople, such as former finance ministers Luis Videgaray and Jose Antonio Meade.

Professional Life: Business Career

Bailleres completed his college education in 1957 and worked at Banco de Comercio. At age 27, he assumed an administrative position at the Moctezuma brewery after the death of his brother Raul. He would inherit his father’s business conglomerate. In the 1960s, he sold the brewery in addition to other assets and founded Penoles, a producer of metals in Latin America.

He was 28 years old when his father died, so it became his responsibility to take over as head of Grupo BAL.

Baillères owned Grupo BAL, which controls a number of other companies including a pensions and annuities business Grupo Profuturo, the largest insurance company in Mexico Grupo Nacional Provincial, a chain of stores mainly located in Mexico City El Palacio de Hierro, and the second most important Mexican mining company Industrias Peñoles / Peñoles which also happens to be the world’s largest silver producer.

The businessman served on the board of directors of Fresnillo plc and was also a head member of the board of ITAM. He also owned other businesses related to bullfighting, financial services, and agriculture.

Mr. Bailleres benefited from the privatizations orchestrated by former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari from 1988 to 1994. His fortune soared under the administration of the conservative National Action Party when he was granted vast acreage for mining from 2000 to 2012.

Achievements: Awards & Honors

Alberto Bailleres received the Belisario Domínguez Medal of Honor in 2015 for his entrepreneurship. This is the highest honor awarded in Mexico by the Senate of the Republic.

His company Petrobal also won its first oil contract in 2015 in Mexico’s inaugural competitive auctions

Personal Life & Death

Baillères and his wife Teresa Gual had seven children and lived in Mexico City.  He was 90 years old when he died on 2 February 2022 in Mexico City.

Alberto Bailleres Net Worth” Salary, Income Sources, Assets

Mr. Bailleres was worth over 10 billion dollars during the final stages of his lifetime. He accumulated his net worth through his interest in many companies in a wide range of industries. His main umbrella company is known as the Grupo Bal and his interests ranged from mining to department stores to insurance companies. Likewise, he also headed the board of ITAM, a higher education thinktank in Mexico, and also controlled many other establishments in the fields of Agriculture and finance as extra sources of income.

As of December 2012, Alberto Bailleres was listed as the second-richest person in Mexico, second behind business tycoon Carlos Slim Helu, whose $67 billion fortune gives a very healthy lead ahead of other Mexican billionaires. Bailleres’s mining company El Palacio de Hierro is considered to be one of the largest operations on the planet and frequently the world’s highest producer of silver. He owned roughly 69 percent of silver producer Industrias Penoles and owned a 98 percent stake in the department store operator Grupo Palacio de Hierro before his demise. He also owned a minority stake in South America’s largest Coca-Cola bottler Femsa, and majority stakes in insurance companies Grupo Profuturo and Grupo Nacional Provincial.