Euromoney 40th anniversary special: Focus on Protego Asesores

Pedro Aspe became an idol in Mexico when he was the finance minister for nearly a decade. His public career spanned 20 years, after 15 years as an economics professor, and put him in the spotlight on groundbreaking work including Brady bonds, privatizing almost 800 Mexican companies and signing the North American Free Trade Agreement. In 1994, Aspe stepped out of the spotlight and in 1996 launched the investment bank advisory boutique Protego, starting his third career in finance. "I started Protego with one simple theory in mind. I saw that private equity firms in New York could supply equity. In Mexico, many medium-sized companies needed this equity. I stepped in and joined up this supply-and-demand chain," says Aspe.