Ricardo Salinas Pliego likes to say he only backs one company — his own, the Mexican banking-to-retailing conglomerate Grupo Elektra that was founded by his father.
But as bitcoin surged in the spring of 2021, the Mexican billionaire and potential presidential candidate wanted to bet $400mn on the cryptocurrency. He didn’t have the spare cash, so he instructed advisers to do what the rich often do in such circumstances: borrow against the value of Elektra shares.
A London broker introduced Salinas’s Swiss adviser to a lender called Astor Capital Fund, describing it in an email as “originally set up on the foundations of the wealth” of the storied Astor family and claiming its backers included “top university endowment funds” and “family offices”.