The Monterrey magnate David Martínez, head of the Fintech fund, allegedly played a crucial role in helping Grupo Clarín, the main media conglomerate in Argentina, to acquire this Monday the operation of Telefónica in the South American country. Martínez, who maintains a discreet dispute against Carlos Slim, ensured with this move that América Móvil would not gain significant expansion in the region's third economy.
The friction with Slim dates back to the beginning of Andrés Manuel López Obrador's six-year term, when Martínez played a crucial role in financial restructuring following the cancellation of the airport that was to be built in Texcoco and which the former president ruled out from the beginning of his administration. Martínez has known Magnetto for decades and privately says he has a friendship with the executive currently in conflict with President Javier Milei.
The Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, also benefited from Clarín's acquisition of Telefónica, as he seeks the company to withdraw from Latin American markets to avoid control by Arab capital. Martínez, a shareholder of Sabadell, rejects the merger, which aligns with Sánchez's interests in preventing BBVA from having too much market share.
In the relationship between Martínez and the Moncloa, the newly appointed CEO of Telefónica - a position appointed by Sánchez (the Spanish government is a shareholder of the company) - Marc Murtra, appears as a coordinating link. Martínez acted in favor of Clarín in the context of an even larger operation: the merger of the banks Sabadell and BBVA in Spain. The owner of Fintech knows Murtra through his Catalan partners at Sabadell and it was through this constellation of relationships that he secured the deal for Héctor Magnetto, head of Clarín.
Slim, of course, sought the continuity of the project and had economic and family interests in it. Martínez, who is also close to Televisa, a competing conglomerate of Carso, understands Slim through the logic of North American businessmen, meaning that the engineer is only prosperous due to his political connections and privileges.
