12.27.07
Posted in News at 12:09 am by Paloma Cruz
Bill Gates buys stake in Mexican brewer Femsa
– Reuters
Billionaire Bill Gates has taken a stake worth $392 million in Mexican brewer Femsa, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Thursday.
[snip]
Femsa has three divisions: its soft drinks unit, Coca-Cola Femsa, (KOF.N: Quote, Profile, Research) (KOFL.MX: Quote, Profile, Research), its beer subsidiary, and also a retail operation, which runs Latin America’s largest corner store chain, known as Oxxo.
[snip]
Via Gizmodo.
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12.20.07
Posted in News at 10:45 pm by Paloma Cruz
This week’s Houston Press has a great feature on Hugo Ortega, owner of Hugo’s. In it he speaks candidly about coming to this country as an illegal immigrant, his road to success and the current reliance the restaurant industry has on the immigrant workforce. A very good read.
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12.17.07
Posted in News at 10:45 am by Paloma Cruz
Self-made immigrant is poised to take the lead at university
AN AMAZING JOURNEY FROM CUBA TO A&M
– Houston Chronicle2
The faded black-and-white photograph shows a family of four in their finest clothes, standing on an airport tarmac. Everyone is smiling, except for the little girl holding her maracas and teddy bear. She is crying.
The date: July 4, 1961. It’s the day they fled Cuba, starting an unlikely journey that has landed the toddler — now an accomplished scholar — on the doorstep of a historic presidency at Texas A&M University.
At first glance, Elsa Murano doesn’t fit the profile of the university’s typical chief executive — a white male over age 50. But A&M describes itself as “a unique American institution,” and what’s more uniquely American than a self-made immigrant who relied on her own determination to reach the top?
“It’s a tremendous reflection of what is possible,” Murano said after regents recently named her the only finalist for the presidency. “Only in America can a girl from Havana get to this point.”
[snip]
Footnotes
2 = article may expire in a few weeks
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12.16.07
Posted in News at 2:01 am by Paloma Cruz
Giant Mexican store expanding to Austin
FAMSA lets people buy here, have products delivered in Mexico
– Hispanic Trending
FAMSA, the large Mexico-based electronics, appliances and furniture retailer that caters to Latinos, plans to open a store in Austin in May at U.S. 183 and Ohlen Road.
The store, in a former Albertson’s building, will be one of about 385 outlets that the rapidly growing FAMSA chain has in the U.S. and Mexico, where it started in Monterrey more than 25 years ago. About 350 stores are in Mexico, and about 35 are in the U.S., with more than 40 to come in the states in the next four years.
The Austin store is expected to draw shoppers from as far as Marble Falls, said David Simmonds. Simmonds is senior vice president in Austin with the Weitzman Group, a commercial brokerage firm representing the shopping center, to be called FAMSA Plaza.
FAMSA stores are unusual in that they allow customers to purchase goods in the U.S. and then have those products delivered to friends and relatives through an extensive network of Mexico distribution centers.
[snip]
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12.14.07
Posted in News at 10:34 am by Paloma Cruz
Hire an Illegal Worker, Lose Your Business
Arizona’s tough new immigration law has companies running scared
– Business Week
In the 20-plus years since starting out as a cook, Jason LeVecke has
built up one of the biggest restaurant chains in Arizona. He now boasts
1,200 employees manning 57 Carl’s Jr.s across the state–ten of them
added this year alone. But on Jan. 1, a new law takes effect in Arizona
that would severely punish businesses caught hiring illegal immigrants.
So LeVecke is looking for growth outside his home state, and will build
25 new restaurants in Texas. Unless the legal situation improves, he
says: “We won’t add any new sites in Arizona. It’s too great a risk.”
In the wake of the federal government’s failure to reform
immigration laws, Arizona joins the more than 100 states and
municipalities that have taken matters into their own hands in hopes of
stemming the tide of illegal immigrants. But Arizona’s law is by far
the harshest toward business. A company caught knowingly employing an
undocumented worker has its license suspended for up to ten days. Get
caught a second time, and a company loses its license to operate
altogether–what Governor Janet Napolitano has called the “business
death penalty.”
[snip]
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