Grupo Sanborns, the retail arm which accounts for about half of sales for Slim’s conglomerate Grupo Carso (GCARSOA1.MX: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), operates coffee shops, restaurants and department stores. It previously traded in Mexico but delisted some years ago.

Slim, who Forbes ranks as the world’s richest man, controls a business empire that includes Latin America’s biggest telecommunications firm, America Movil (AMXL.MX: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), as well as banking, construction, real estate and mining companies.

Seeking to raise 9.1 billion pesos, Sanborns will split the up to 350 million share offering, which is still subject to approval by shareholders, equally between domestic and international investors. That includes a greenshoe option of 45 million shares.

In 2010, the retailer flirted with the idea of opening a branch in Manhattan but the plan never panned out.

Sanborns brought luxury store Saks Fifth Avenue to Mexico in 2007 and has opened a second store since. Slim is a top shareholder in Saks Inc (SKS.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

For the third-quarter of 2012, it earned 552 million pesos ($44 million) on 8.9 billion pesos in sales.

Sanborns tracks its origin to a small drug store founded in downtown Mexico City in 1903 by young American brothers Walter and Frank Sanborn.

The small business added a soda fountain that quickly drew an eclectic crowd, from Mexican President Porfirio Diaz, who was fond of sundaes and banana splits, to Revolutionary leaders Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata, who went in for hot cocoa.

The business, which kept its logo of three owls atop a tree branch representing Frank Sanborn and his two children, was sold to Slim’s Grupo Carso in 1985.

The coffee chain is a stop for students on a budget who can easily hook up to its wi-fi network while drinking inexpensive coffee and office workers seeking an after-hours drink.

($1 = 12.6608 Mexican pesos)

(Additional reporting by Elinor Comlay and Michael O’Boyle; Editing by Bernard Orr and Edwina Gibbs)

Grupo Sanborns, which operates coffee shops and its
name-sake restaurant and retail chain which offers clients
anything from flashy ties to ornaments and flatscreen TVs,
delisted from the Mexican stock exchange some years ago.

In 2010, the retailer flirted with the idea of opening a
branch in Manhattan but the plan never panned out.

Sanborns did not detail in a release to the Mexican stock
exchange the amount of the expected share offerings, which are
still subject to approval by shareholders in an upcoming
meeting.

Grupo Sanborns brought luxury store Saks Fifth Avenue to
Mexico in 2007 and has opened a second store since. Slim, the
world’s richest man, is a top shareholder in Saks Inc.

Sanborns tracks its origin to a small drug store founded in
downtown Mexico City in 1903 by young American brothers Walter
and Frank Sanborn.

The small business added a soda fountain that quickly drew
an eclectic crowd, from Mexican President Porfirio Diaz, who was
fond of sundaes and banana splits, to Revolutionary leaders
Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata, who went in for hot cocoa.

The business, which keeps its logo of three owls atop a tree
branch representing Frank Sanborn and his two children, was sold
to Slim’s Grupo Carso in 1985.

The chain is a stop for students on a budget who can easily
hook up to its wi-fi network while drinking inexpensive coffee
and office workers seeking an after-hours drink.

The cost of the acquisition of the Bancomer pension fund will be split in half between Banorte (GFNORTEO.MX: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and the Mexican Social Security Institute, a state-run health organization. The two co-own the Afore XXI Banorte pension fund in Mexico.

Earlier this year, Banorte’s chairman and former head of Mexico’s central bank, Guillermo Ortiz, told Reuters that the group was also looking at BBVA’s (BBVA.MC: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) pension funds in Colombia and Peru.

Banorte, Mexico’s No.4 bank by assets, has been actively strengthening its operations in the country. Last year, the group bought boutique bank Ixe, which gave it access to Ixe’s portfolio of wealthy clients.

The group’s chairman emeritus, Roberto Gonzalez Barrera, 81, died in August from complications related to pancreatic cancer. The bank said his heirs remain major shareholders after his passing.

Banorte shares ended up 0.14 percent at 74.11 pesos on Tuesday.

The country’s pension regulator said on Tuesday evening that the firms had started the paperwork necessary for approval, but pointed out that the deal still needed approval from multiple government regulatory agencies.

“This commission has the resources necessary to issue a speedy ruling on this transaction,” the regulator said.

(Reporting By Alexandra Alper and Cyntia Barrera; Editing by Tim Dobbyn and Matt Driskill)

Karl Watson, president of Cemex USA, told analysts during a
presentation on Tuesday the company expects U.S. housing starts
to increase 16 percent next year, reaching 873,000. The company
forecast U.S. residential sector cement demand will increase by
14 percent in 2013.

One of the world’s biggest cement makers, Cemex was hit hard
by the collapse of the U.S. housing market soon after the
company paid about $16 billion to buy Australian peer Rinker.

It recently refinanced a portion of its debt, gaining time
to get back on its feet.

Watson said U.S. annual cement sales are now about $3
billion. The company says it might generate U.S. earnings before
interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of about
$1.206 billion by 2016.

And in four years, Cemex might be producing 16 million
tonnes of cement in the United States as sales reach $5.4
billion, the company’s management added.

Analysts at the San Antonio, Texas, meeting voiced concern
about the so-called fiscal cliff, a combination of government
spending cuts and tax increases set to take effect in early 2013
that might tip the U.S. economy back into recession.

“We are heading up. People are investing, signing contracts,
there’s real momentum … We don’t see our business falling off
a cliff,” Watson said.

The company, which has presence in more than 50 countries,
will raise prices in the U.S. market by more than $8 per tonne
in January and July of next year, Watson said.

FIRE SALES ARE OFF

Monterrey-based Cemex has used non-core asset sales in the
past to pay off debt. But with financial pressure cooling after
the refinancing of $6.7 billion of debt a few weeks ago, Cemex
will not be forced to unload any key assets in the near future.

In the United States, the company does plan to sell about
$71 million worth of assets this year and a similar amount in
2013.

Cemex shares closed down 0.76 percent at 11.71 pesos on
Tuesday, while its New York-traded stock slipped 1.4 percent to
$8.94.

Real Oviedo, once a top team, has gradually lost its luster amid deep financial and labor troubles. They last played in the top flight in 2001 and are now down in the regional Segunda B (third tier) and are currently fourth, five points behind leaders Tenerife.

Many individual investors have responded to the club’s appeal for cash in recent weeks. Real Madrid club invested earlier this month some $127,100 to help its Asturian rival keep afloat.

“We are at around 35 percent (stake) which makes us, by far, the top holder,” Slim’s spokesman and chief aide Arturo Elias Ayub told Reuters on Saturday.

He said additional investments in the Spanish team were being received until midnight Saturday.

The investment in the Real Oviedo was made via Slim’s privately held Inmobiliaria Carso.

The team “has a lot of qualities, has an impressive history, a strong following,” Elias Ayub added. “More than a business investment, it was a personal investment (for Slim), a support to the team’s fans.”

Slim, who owns telecommunications, infrastructure, retail, mining and banking businesses, tapped the sports world in September after his mobile phone giant, America Movil (AMXL.MX: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) (AMX.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), bought a 30 percent stake in the Leon and Pachuca clubs in Mexico’s first division for an undisclosed amount.

America Movil also bought the transmission rights for the Leon team and the club’s matches are now aired with Fox Sports on cable networks across Latin America, Telemundo in the United States and via popular sports online site Medio Tiempo.

Elias Ayub said that the Real Oviedo purchase could bring new transmission opportunities to Slim’s webstreaming effort, UnoTV, which the tycoon has used to bypass a Mexican government ban that forbids him from offering broadcast television.

The acquisition will also allow exchanges of players between Slim’s Mexican teams and the Spanish club, Elias Ayub said.

The Leon and Pachuca purchases by Slim, who is an avid sports fan, challenged the grip that top broadcasters Televisa (TLVACPO.MX: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) (TV.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and TV Azteca (AZTECACPO.MX: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) have held on the Mexican soccer business for years.

Themselves owners of big money-making professional soccer franchises, the broadcasters have been often accused by smaller teams of setting the rules in terms of transmission rights and advertising.

Slim, who has been fighting for years to get a television license, took the TV networks by surprise last year by webstreaming free live coverage of the Pan American Games, which the stations said was a breach of their broadcast rights.

The tycoon dominates the fixed-line, cell phone and Internet markets in Mexico and operates telecom businesses in 16 other Latin American countries plus the United States.

Slim embarked this year on his first European telecom expansion after buying stakes in Dutch and Austrian companies.

(Additional reporting by Veronica Gomez in Mexico and Iain Rogers in Madrid; Editing by Eric Walsh)

Real Oviedo, once a top team, has gradually lost its luster amid deep financial and labor troubles. They last played in the top flight in 2001 and are now down in the regional Segunda B (third tier) and are currently fourth, five points behind leaders Tenerife.

Many individual investors have responded to the club’s appeal for cash in recent weeks. Real Madrid club invested earlier this month some $127,100 to help its Asturian rival keep afloat.

“We are at around 35 percent (stake) which makes us, by far, the top holder,” Slim’s spokesman and chief aide Arturo Elias Ayub told Reuters on Saturday.

He said additional investments in the Spanish team were being received until midnight Saturday.

The investment in the Real Oviedo was made via Slim’s privately held Inmobiliaria Carso.

The team “has a lot of qualities, has an impressive history, a strong following,” Elias Ayub added. “More than a business investment, it was a personal investment (for Slim), a support to the team’s fans.”

Slim, who owns telecommunications, infrastructure, retail, mining and banking businesses, tapped the sports world in September after his mobile phone giant, America Movil , bought a 30 percent stake in the Leon and Pachuca clubs in Mexico’s first division for an undisclosed amount.

America Movil also bought the transmission rights for the Leon team and the club’s matches are now aired with Fox Sports on cable networks across Latin America, Telemundo in the United States and via popular sports online site Medio Tiempo.

Elias Ayub said that the Real Oviedo purchase could bring new transmission opportunities to Slim’s webstreaming effort, UnoTV, which the tycoon has used to bypass a Mexican government ban that forbids him from offering broadcast television.

The acquisition will also allow exchanges of players between Slim’s Mexican teams and the Spanish club, Elias Ayub said.

The Leon and Pachuca purchases by Slim, who is an avid sports fan, challenged the grip that top broadcasters Televisa and TV Azteca have held on the Mexican soccer business for years. Themselves owners of big money-making professional soccer franchises, the broadcasters have been often accused by smaller teams of setting the rules in terms of transmission rights and advertising.

Slim, who has been fighting for years to get a television license, took the TV networks by surprise last year by webstreaming free live coverage of the Pan American Games, which the stations said was a breach of their broadcast rights.

The tycoon dominates the fixed-line, cell phone and Internet markets in Mexico and operates telecom businesses in 16 other Latin American countries plus the United States.

Slim embarked this year on his first European telecom expansion after buying stakes in Dutch and Austrian companies.

Privately-held conglomerate Elementia plans an initial
public offering in the medium term, Chief Executive Eduardo
Musalem said on Tuesday, and it is opening a cement company that
aims to supply 3 percent of the Mexican market by next year.

Slim’s conglomerate Grupo Carso owns 46
percent of Elementia and businessman Antonio del Valle, a
majority shareholder of plastics pipe maker Mexichem
, owns 54 percent, Musalem said.

Elementia is backing the new cement maker that aims to open
a plant in December with an annual capacity of 1 million tonnes,
Musalem said.

Slim, who Forbes ranks as the world’s richest man, controls
a financial network built on telecommunications companies that
has expanded into retail, banking, construction, real estate and
mining.

The new cement maker, Cementos Fortaleza, will build its
plant in Hidalgo state and will distribute cement in about
one-third of Mexico’s states, Musalem said.

The firm is set to compete against market leader Cemex,
which supplies more than 60 percent of Mexican demand and its
local plants have the capacity to produce 29.3 million metric
tons a year, according to the company’s website.

Elementia has other units that produce polyethylene, copper
and aluminum, key materials in the construction field.

Cemex, which also posted on Monday a narrower quarterly loss
helped by stronger results at its key Mexican and U.S. markets
and gains on financial instruments, sees 2012 consolidated
cement volumes down by 1 percent, compared to a previous view of
1 percent growth.

Ready-mix and aggregates volumes may fall by 2 percent this
year, the company said.

The company, which has been in the red for 12 consecutive
quarters, said it lost $203 million in the July-September
period, compared with a $730 million loss in the same quarter of
2011.

Results were weaker than market estimates. According to a
Reuters poll, analysts, on average, looked for a third-quarter
net loss of $16 million.

The company also said it is slashing 2.5 percent of its
global staff of around 45,000 workers to cut costs. The move is
linked to a July deal with IBM under which the U.S. company will
hire 450 of those workers while the remaining 675 will be fired.

Cemex was hurt by the 2008 U.S. housing meltdown shortly
after paying out $16 billion to buy Australian peer Rinker. It
has been digging out of deep debt obligations for the past three
years.

It recently wrapped up a $7.2 billion refinancing package
that gave it much-needed room to push back looming debt payments
for up to four years The umbrella deal also included a debt
swap, a $1 billion prepayment and revised financial covenants.

Two weeks ago, the company also completed a $1.5 billion
sale of 10-year notes amid heavy demand from investors,
signaling the market is more at ease with its steps to regain
financial health.

COLOMBIA IS A GO

As part of the steps taken by the Monterrey-based company to
raise cash, it plans to list its Cemex Latam Holdings unit in
the Colombian stock market.

“This past week, we made significant progress and expect to
receive authorization for this transaction soon,” said Fernando
Gonzalez, executive vice president of finance and
administration.

According to Gonzalez, it is just a matter of the Colombian
authorities signing on the deal to move ahead with the listing,
which is expected to raise at least $750 million.

Separately, Cemex said it continues to evaluate more asset
sales but Fernandez declined details. In the past, the company
has unloaded quarries and ponds for sport fishing for quick cash
without hurting its core operations in more than 50 countries.

Cemex’s third-quarter consolidated net sales dropped 2
percent to $3.9 billion from $3.98 billion. Adjusting for
investments and currency fluctuations, sales rose 2 percent.

Higher sales in Mexico, the United States, South and Central
America and the Caribbean partially offset revenue declines in
Europe and the Mediterranean.

“An improvement in pricing and volume in several of our
regions as well as the continued success of our transformation
effort has led to the highest operating EBITDA margin in three
years,” Fernando Gonzalez, executive vice president of finance
and administration, said in a release.

Cemex’s operating earnings before
interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) rose 9
percent to $730 million.

Cemex shares rose 0.62 percent to 11.43 pesos Monday noon
while its New York-traded stock gained 0.79 percent to $8.90.

No other Mexican sports teams are publicly owned and the move would give the two teams access to more resources to buy in better players and invest in youth academies.

“It would be great that our fans could buy shares into their own teams,” Pachuca President Jesus Martinez told Reuters on Thursday, although he added it may take some time before the plan pans out.

Pachuca ranked 6th of 18 clubs in the national football league in the last Mexican championship and Leon has just made it back to the first division after a decade in the wilderness.

In Latin America, other football teams have tapped financial markets. In Chile, three clubs trade publicly: Colo Colo, Universidad de Chile and Universidad Catolica. According to Reuters data, the three have a combined market value of close to $200 million.

Sports fan Slim made his first foray into football ownership last week as his mobile giant, America Movil, acquired a 30 percent stake in the two clubs in Mexico’s first division. The amount of the investment was not disclosed.

On Thursday, Slim’s spokesman Arturo Elias Ayub said America Movil also bought the transmission rights for the Leon team, which he said had a good chance of becoming national champion one day.

Elias Ayub was once president of the Pumas team, leading them to win back-to-back national championships. The team belongs to Mexico’s National Autonomous University, from which billionaire Slim graduated with an engineering degree.

INTO NEW TERRITORY

Slim’s Leon and Pachuca stakes challenge the grip that top broadcasters Televisa and TV Azteca have held on the local football business for years.

Themselves owners of big money-making professional football franchises, the broadcasters have been often accused by smaller teams of setting the rules in terms of transmission rights and advertising.

Slim, who has been fighting for years to get a television license, caught the TV networks offside last year by webstreaming free live coverage of the Pan American Games, which the stations said was a breach of their broadcast rights.

Elias Ayub said the Leon matches will be aired with FoxSports on cable networks across Latin America, Telemundo network in the United States and via popular sports online site Medio Tiempo and Slim’s own online channel, Uno TV, in Mexico.

Slim dominates the market for mobile and fixed phones in Mexico, but the government has kept him out of the country’s main television market.

In the meantime, he has kept busy by boosting the sports programming of the online Uno TV. Slim is a big baseball fan — his favourite team is the New York Yankees — and also loves car racing and boxing.

(Additional reporting by Carlos Pacheco in Mexico, Ignacio Badal and Javier Lopez in Chile and Jorge Otaola in Argentina; Editing by Dan Grebler and Phil Berlowitz)

No other Mexican sports teams are publicly owned and the move would give the two teams access to more resources to buy in better players and invest in youth academies.

“It would be great that our fans could buy shares into their own teams,” Pachuca President Jesus Martinez told Reuters on Thursday, although he added it may take some time before the plan pans out.

Pachuca ranked 6th of 18 clubs in the national football league in the last Mexican championship and Leon has just made it back to the first division after a decade in the wilderness.

In Latin America, other soccer teams have tapped financial markets. In Chile, three clubs trade publicly: Colo Colo, Universidad de Chile and Universidad Catolica. According to Reuters data, the three have a combined market value of close to $200 million.

Sports fan Slim made his first foray into soccer ownership last week as his mobile giant, America Movil, acquired a 30 percent stake in the two clubs in Mexico’s first division. The amount of the investment was not disclosed.

On Thursday, Slim’s spokesman Arturo Elias Ayub said America Movil also bought the transmission rights for the Leon team, which he said had a good chance of becoming national champion one day.

Elias Ayub was once president of the Pumas team, leading them to win back-to-back national championships. The team belongs to Mexico’s National Autonomous University, from which billionaire Slim graduated with an engineering degree.

INTO NEW TERRITORY

Slim’s Leon and Pachuca stakes challenge the grip that top broadcasters Televisa and TV Azteca have held on the local soccer business for years.

Themselves owners of big money-making professional soccer franchises, the broadcasters have been often accused by smaller teams of setting the rules in terms of transmission rights and advertising.

Slim, who has been fighting for years to get a television license, caught the TV networks offside last year by webstreaming free live coverage of the Pan American Games, which the stations said was a breach of their broadcast rights.

Elias Ayub said the Leon matches will be aired with FoxSports on cable networks across Latin America, Telemundo network in the United States and via popular sports online site Medio Tiempo and Slim’s own online channel, Uno TV, in Mexico.

Slim dominates the market for mobile and fixed phones in Mexico, but the government has kept him out of the country’s main television market.

In the meantime, he has kept busy by boosting the sports programming of the online Uno TV. Slim is a big baseball fan — his favorite team is the New York Yankees — and also loves car racing and boxing.

(Additional reporting by Carlos Pacheco in Mexico, Ignacio Badal and Javier Lopez in Chile and Jorge Otaola in Argentina; Editing by Dan Grebler and Phil Berlowitz)