Zambrano reveals how Cemex survived the crisis
By Barbara Anderson and Adolfo Ortega
CNNExpansion.com
One Sunday last summer, Cemex chairman Lorenzo Zambrano got up early at his home in the San Pedro Garza Garcia neighborhood of Monterrey. For one of the first times the self-confessed workaholic contemplated just going back to bed.
Zambrano had spent the previous night with close relatives. A few hours before the get together, he had received word from his team in Madrid that negotiations to refinance Cemex's debt were not going well.
"It hurt a lot, but it was what was happening, many were even betting against Cemex, and that gave me more courage. We had been told that there were people spreading rumors against the company to cause the stock price to fall and make money doing it," he said.
But then he remembered what one of his advisers told him days before: “The markets don't believe that Cemex can fail."
Eventually, in August, he signed a new agreement with the company's creditors (almost a hundred including banks and private investors) that gave it more time to pay, but also imposed new restrictions.
"This was the first time that we had experienced this situation, and we do not want to live through it again," said Cemex's vice president of finance, Hector Medina.
