Cementing Mexican-Irish relations

Via Latin American Herald Tribune:

MEXICO CITY – Mexico’s Cemex, one of the world’s three largest cement companies, said it has agreed to acquire all of the shares in Ireland’s Readymix PLC it did not already hold for 10.6 million euros ($14.2 million).

The Mexican firm said in a filing with the Mexican stock exchange that it would make the share acquisition through its Cemex Spain unit.

Cemex said in the filing that it agreed to acquire the stake it did not already own in its subsidiary – approximately 39 percent of the total – for 0.25 euros ($0.36) per share.

The transaction must still be approved by Readymix’s shareholders, although the filing said that the company’s Irish shareholders consider Cemex’s offer to be “fair and reasonable.”

Founded in 1906, Cemex operates in more than 50 countries and is one of the world’s “big three” cement makers along with France’s Lafarge and Switzerland’s Holcim.

I think it’s still sinking in that Mexico’s economy is relatively robust, and Mexico does have multi-nationals, besides the … uh… unlicensed agricultural export ones. It makes it all that much harder to understand why there’s the assumption that foreign firms have to run (or even should be allowed to operate) in key industrial sectors like petroleum and mining, which were only opened to foreigners for reasons that seem more ideological (there is no God but profits, and Milton Friedman is his prophet) than logical.