Mexicoâs First Richest Man
William O. Jenkins, an enigmatic American from Tennessee who adopted Mexico as his country at the turn of the 20th century, was once that countryâs richest man. âJenkins was the precursor of todayâs Mexican plutocracy, and hence the Carlos Slim of his days. Crony capitalism is as current today as in Jenkinsâ era,â Andrew Paxman, author of  âJenkins of Mexico: How a Southern Farm Boy Became a Mexican Magnate,â told me.
Officially published Monday by Oxford University Press, âJenkins of Mexicoâ is an engaging 509-page biography of an American with humble origins who mastered the art of navigating Mexicoâs byzantine and often corrupt political system to build an extraordinary business empire in a divided country coming out of the 1910 Revolution. Headquartered in the central Mexican state of Puebla, Jenkinsâ conglomerate included textile mills, sugar plantations, real estate, banks, and a movie theater monopoly.
âLike Slim today, William Jenkins was the richest man in Mexico, politically connected, a monopolist but also an entrepreneur,â Paxman said, referring to telecom mogul Carlos Slim HelĂș, Mexicoâs richest person.
âBoth men owed their rise to two basic factors: entrepreneurial drive and knowing the right people,â said Paxman, a business historian at the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics (CIDE) in Mexico City. Paxmanâs long-term project is also to write a biography of Slim.
Slim has many things in common with his predecessor. Both were innovators, gifted with numbers, intelligent, risk-takers, family centered-men, philanthropists, controversial with a reputation of exploiting workers and being puppet-masters of politicians. They had dreams of building business empires and had the skill to realize them.
From Paxmanâs scholarly research one can derive that Jenkins is the putative âgrandfatherâ of several Mexican billionaires today. Like Jenkins, todayâs billionaires also embraced U.S.-type capitalism through entrepreneurship and monopolistic practices, fearless individualism, and cozy deals with power brokers.
Jenkins and Slim, who was 23 when Jenkins passed away in 1963 in his beloved Puebla, never met. But, as âJenkins of Mexicoâ shows, there is a âbusiness genealogyâ that links them. That link was Manuel Espinosa Iglesias, Jenkinsâ right-hand man, and Slimâs friend. Espinosa Iglesias was the majority owner of Mexicoâs leading bank when the banks were seized by the government in 1982. In 1985, Espinosa Iglesias sold off his insurance company and other firms to his friend Carlos Slim and devoted himself to philanthropy.
Paxman describes that as Jenkins was cementing his position as âmagnate of magnatesâ in the 1940s, he acted as a mentor to Espinosa Iglesias. Espinosa, the richest Mexican of the 1970s, in turn, became âsomething of a mentorâ to Slim.
âBoth Jenkins and Slim evinced a talent for buying at bargain prices⊠Both became masters of monopoly. And both, it seems, [were] adept at protecting and expanding their monopolies through political ties.â While the book documents beyond doubt Jenkinsâ financing of a known political family that produced a President and a state governor, Slimâs cronyism with Mexicoâs political class remains a âmatter of conjecture and conspiracy theory more than documented fact,â Paxman cautions.
Jenkins and Slim also share a strong personal devotion to their late wives. Jenkins never remarried after his wifeâs early death. According to âJenkins of Mexico,â he visited her grave every day to read aloud to her. In 1954, ten years after her death, Jenkins publicly honored her memory by setting up the Mary Street Jenkins Foundation. With $7 million in assets, the foundation was probably Mexicoâs largest private charity at the time, Paxman says. Jenkins also co-founded two universities and funded projects to help Mexicoâs poor.
Slim, whose wife passed away in 1999, has not remarried. To honor her memory, Slim founded the Soumaya Museum, a non-profit art museum in Mexico City known for its flashy façade. Slim also funds medical research on kidney disease, the cause of his wifeâs death.
After Jenkinsâ death in 1963, Espinosa Iglesias became chairman of the Mary Street Jenkins Foundation. Despite having five daughters and an adopted son (his own grandson), Jenkins willed his fortune to the foundation. With an endowment of some $750 million, the Jenkins Foundation remains one of Mexicoâs largest charitable foundations.
Jenkins was reportedly worth $80 million a the time of his death. According to Paxman, in todayâs money thatâs $650 million. âNot at the Forbes Billionaire list level, but then the Mexican economy was much smaller than today,â Paxman explains.
Asked if he expects Jenkinsâ generosity to inspire Slim to leave his fortune to philanthropy, Paxman said: âNo, Slim certainly wonât do that. He wants to leave his empire to his sons, sons-in-law, and grandsons.â
Jenkinsâ and Slimâs nationalities determined to some extent how they are perceived today by Mexicans. Slim, a Mexican of Lebanese descent, is often projected as the living face of crony capitalism, but his Mexican critics say that at least he is âour capitalist.â Jenkins, on the other hand, is partly credited with giving rise to the type of anti-Americanism that has reemerged in Mexico thanks, in part, to anti-Mexican statements made by U.S. President Donald Trump.
Source: forbes.com