This is how the family fortune of Altagracia Gómez, coordinator of the Business Advisory Council of Claudia Sheinbaum’s government, began

Altagracia has become one of Claudia Sheinbaum’s main links with the business sector. Photo: Facebook/Secretariat of Equality and Inclusion Nuevo León

Last Tuesday, President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo appointed businesswoman Altagracia Gómez, only 32 years old, as the coordinator of the Business Council of her administration.

Altagracia Gómez is one of the most influential business leaders in Mexico, according to the American magazine specializing in financial issues Forbes. It should be remembered that on December 1, the then presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum appointed her coordinator of the Regional Economic Development table in her Dialogues for Transformation team.

Since then, she has become one of the main links with the business sector, in particular as a spokesperson on the subject of company relocation or nearshoring, development hubs for well-being and industrial corridors.

The entrepreneurial streak runs through his family. In an interview with investor and influencer Oswaldo Oso Trava, for his podcast Cracks, he talked regarding how his family’s business success has been, which has given them a great fortune.

Last Tuesday, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo appointed businesswoman Altagracia Gómez as the coordinator of the Business Council of her administration. (X/@Claudiashein)

Altagracia Gómez’s family owns a conglomerate called Minsa. In the interview, she says that Minsa is part of a conglomerate or group of companies. It was founded by her grandfather, who died very young, at the age of 42. At the time of his death, he already had seven children and her grandmother was pregnant with her eighth child.

The day of his death was the same day that he was named representative of the hoteliers in Jalisco, since he worked all his life at the Hotel Roma, in Guadalajara, and from that time on he created the first industrial laundry in the capital of that state, which provided service to all the hotels in the area, to wash clothes, sheets, etc.

He also founded a company called Panoramics, which was the first company to offer regular and variable tourist services to places like Tequila, Chapala, and others around Guadalajara. “My grandfather died and my oldest uncle was left as the master of the house, to accompany my grandmother, to check grades, and my father started to start his own business with what they had left them, he was 16 years old.”

He said that his father hired two godfathers, one very liberal and one very conservative, to introduce him to banks and society. After this, he decided, at the age of 20, to create the largest industrial laundry in Latin America at that time, and even spoke to the president to get a loan. “That’s how it started, he got heavily into transportation, into one of the largest transportation companies in the country, with the big transport lords in Mexico in the 60s and 70s, he decided that with what he had, and that my grandfather had also left them some rental apartments for US veterans, my grandfather, originally from the United States, but he renounced his nationality and became Mexican, with that, what they gave them in rents, etc., and what they already brought in from transportation, they decided to close the laundry issue in 78 and fully enter the real estate issue, since in Jalisco there were crazy processes of land capitalization happening because the city was growing so much.”

Altagracia Gómez’s family owns Grupo Minsa. (https://mx.linkedin.com/)

He points out that the first development he did was Altagracia, 600 homes were built in 6 months, and since then they have built between 3,000 and 3,500 houses each year. “They diversified, in the 80s there was the privatization issue in Mexico, late 80s, early 90s, so we decided to get fully involved and we were one of the groups that participated most actively in the privatizations, some were won, others were lost, but that was when in 89 we entered to buy Dina.”

He explained that in 1988 Mexico announced that it would enter into bankruptcy, so all the banks and offers closed, “and my dad left with a Chivas backpack, literally, we were regarding to buy Chivas, also, from Austria, and the first bank that gave Mexico a loan, it was to build the Camino Real in Acapulco, and the second was UBS to buy Dina, in 89 we bought Dina, we started in 88 to build the Camino Real in Acapulco, then in 91-92, we bought Minsa, we also had Banca Cremi, which we later sold, we were the only ones who managed to sell before the crisis of 94, we sold in November and in December there was the December Error, then we lost TV Azteca, and when we lost TV Azteca, they tell us: these two or three things remain, do you want some of this? And we decided on Almer, with Almer they did the same as with the railways, then they said: these are very strategic things, there can’t be a monopoly, they said: we are going to divide it regionally, so they made Kansas for the Northern railway, they made Almacenadora del Norte, which that tender was deserted, they made the West, which is what Ferrovalle is now, and we were left, they made the South, ICA bought it, we participated and lost, it bought ICA and went bankrupt, and now another family has it.”

He points out that this is how his family began to take over strategic national businesses, and from 2000, when there was no longer growth or diversification, the consolidation stage began. “The entire first or second generation already had children, we all had companies, the children were very young, in my case, I am one of the little ones, in 2000 I was nine years old, and the process took place, let’s say, of going from a small group in Jalisco to an important group economically but above all socially and politically in Mexico, because they are products of the basic basket,” he concludes.