Signatures on Banco Nacional de México notes

Maurice Armand Delille

Pablo Escandón y Barrón was born in Morelos in 1857. He was educated in England until 1875. On his father’s death in 1878 he returned to Mexico and inherited a fortune of almost five million pesos. He belonged to the Científicos and owned two haciendas in Morelos, Xochimancas and San Diego Atlihuayán. As a member of the Mexican polo team he won a bronze medal at the 1900 Olympics, Mexico’s first Olympic medal.

He was a career soldier and became a brigadier general and Porfirio Díaz; Jefe de Estado Mayor. He was a deputy for Guanajuato from 1894 until 1912 and was governor of Morelos from 15 March 1909 until May 1911, but abandoned the governorship and went to the United States on Díaz’ resignation. He came back to support Huerta but on his defeat, returned to exile. He came back after 1920 and died in Mexico City on 31 March 1926.

Hugo Scherer, Jr. (cousin of Hugo Sr. and younger brother of his wife) was the director of Hugo Scherer y Compañía and on the board of the Compañía Maderera de la Sierra de Durango (land and timber), the Compañía Minera Dos Estrellas,the Agujita (coal), the Transportes de Guadalajara (trams), Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México and the Banco Internacional Hipotecario. Thanks to his international banking contacts he was director of the Société Financière pour l’industrie au Mexique and in charge of the Caja de Préstamos para Obras de Irrigación y Fomento de la Agricultura, which made a fifty million pesos bond issue in 1908. Thanks to his connections to José Yves Limantour he was also a member of the Comisión de Cambios y Monedas, which determined monetary policy and the exchange rate.

José A. Signoret

José A. Signoret was president from June 1915 until 1934.

Sebastián Camacho was born in Jalapa, Veracruz in 1823. His father was a distinguished diplomat, governor and statesman who accumulated a large fortune in business with Angel Lerdo de Tejada. Sebastián gained a civil engineering degree from the National School of Mines and owned various mining and industrial businesses, as well as being assayer at the Mexico City mint and publisher of La Libertad.

He was alternate senator from Jalisco (1888-1894, 1896-1898), deputy from Guanajuato (1894 – 1898) and senator from the Federal District (1900-1914).

Camacho was president of the bank from May 1904 until 1914

Antonio de Mier y Célis was born in Mexico City on 3 October 1834. The son of Gregorio de Mier y Terán, a businessman and man of letters, Antonio inherited a large fortune and was one of the richest men during the Porfiriato. In 1881 he joined with some French investors to create the Banco Nacional Mexicano and was the first president of the Consejo de Administración after the merger of the Banco Nacional Mexicano and Banco Mercantil Mexicano. He held this office from April 1882 until 1898.

On 29 October 1894 he was appointed Mexico’s envoy to France, a post he held until his death in Paris, France on 13 December 1899.

His widow, Isabel Pesado, donated her husband’s library of 7,526 books to the Biblioteca Nacional de México.

Pablo Macedo González de Saravia

He was a federal deputy from the Federal District from 1892 through to 1912.o 1896, from Puebla 1896 to 1902 and from the Federal District 1902 to 1911.

He died in exile in Madrid, Spain, on 25 December 1918.

He was a member of the Mexico City council from 1886 to 1888, a federal deputy from the Federal District 1886 to 1896, from Puebla 1896 to 1902 and from the Federal District 1902 to 1911. A bureaucrat, he served as a judge, ambassador, Oficial Mayor of the Treasury 1893 to 1900 and Subsecretario from 1900 to 1904 and from 1905 to 1911. He accompanied Porfirio Díaz to exile in Paris in 1911, and died on 27 December 1912.

Rafael Ortiz de la Huerta was the second president of the bank, from 1899 to 1902

Ernest Pugibet was born in the Garonne, near to Toulouse, France in 1855. He was the prototype of French investors in Mexico. He arrived in the country in 1879, after a long stay in Cuba, and founded the cigar factory, El Buen Tono^{The Compañía Manufacturera El Buen Tono, founded by Ernest Pugibet as a family enterprise, was the largest of Mexico’s cigarette manufacturers. In 1894 Pugibet, seeking to raise additional capital to expand production and control the market, reorganized the firm as a joint-stock company, with a capitalization of one million pesos. The firm’s other major stockholders were Mexico City’s most important merchant-financiers, including Henry C. Waters, Thomas Braniff, José V. del Collado, Hugo Scherer, and Henri Tron. They were joined on the board of directors by influential members of the government including Roberto Núñez (undersecretary of the treasury), Pablo Macedo (president of congress), Manuel González Cosio, (secretary of war), and Porfirio Díaz, Jr. Through a process of additional stock issues and the reinvestment of profits, the subscribed capital of the company quickly grew to 6.5 million pesos by 1907.
With a controlling interest in Mexico’s second largest cigarette company, La Cigarrera Mexicana, El Buen Tono controlled roughly 50 per cent of national production.}. Together with Henri Tron and Auguste Genin he organised the Société Financière pour l'Industrie au Mexique and was on the board of several companies, e.g. El Palacio de Hierro, la Cervecería Moctezuma, la Compañía Nacional Mexicana de Dinamita y Explosivos, the textile factory of San Ildefonso, and the Banco Nacional de México.

Antonio Basagoiti arrived in Mexico around 1870 and was at first an import merchant, later a very successful merchant banker, then a director of the Banco Nacional de México, and eventually on his return to Spain in 1900 founder and president of the Banco Hispano Americano.

He began his career as an employee in the firm of Antonio Escandón but soon established firm links to the Zaldo family, which operated out of Veracruz and specialised in both textiles and tobacco production and imports. Basagoiti early on set up a textile factory in the provincial capital of Xalapa. Years later he moved to Mexico City where he set up the merchant banking firm of Basagoiti/Zaldo.

His prestige in the Spanish merchant colony in Mexico, helped his business as he generated much confidence in clients. By moving from merchant and importer to financier, Basagoiti was able to consolidate his networks of contacts and correspondents and clients.

But Basagoiti also began to diversify his investments, particularly in the new banking institutions in the capital and provinces (Banco Nacional de México, Banco de Londres y México, Banco Oriental in Puebla and BancoMercantil de Veracruz, among others.)

In the first place he discounted bills or letters of exchange issued by a multitude of merchants. This allowed him to build up a very broad network of clients and correspondents and facilitated a great variety of local and trade operations. In the second place he became a specialist in the discount of bills of exchange on other cities and ports abroad, particularly those in Cuba and Spain. In the third place he began directly to lend money in short, medium and long term credits to merchants, industrialists and landowners. In the fourth place, he helped manage the fortunes and business of other Spanish entrepreneurs, some of whom had returned to Spain. He married the daughter of one of the wealthiest Spanish merchant bankers, Manuel Ibañez, who had developed the business of remittances to Spain.

Basagoiti not only developed his merchant and financial business, but also became a prime leader in the early industrialization of Mexico. He set up tobacco and textile firms, but most important was his participation as 25% owner of the first steel firm in Mexico and Latin America, Fundidora de Monterrey, which began operations in 1900 and was run by Asturian managers for over eighty years.

Basagoiti´s experience in business in Mexico was key in facilitating his reinvestment of profits in Spain in a field he knew well, that of banking, and allowed him to create the Banco Hispano Americano in Madrid in 1901 with capital from Mexico and Cuba.

Alfredo Chavero

Alfredo Chavero was Interventor of the Banco de Londres y México in 1902, before serving here.