David Martinez

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For the Mexican race car driver, see David Martínez.

For the baseball player, see Dave Martinez.

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David Martinez Guzman (born 1957) is managing partner of Fintech Advisory, a firm that specializes in corporate and country debt. Fintech has offices in London and New York. David Martinez studied and earned an electrical engineer title at the Tecnologico de Monterrey (ITESM) in Monterrey, Mexico, and received an MBA from Harvard Business School. In the late 80s and early 90s, he worked for Citibank.

David Martinez was born to Manuel Martinez and Maria Guzman in Monterrey, Mexico. His family lived an average life until his father received a small fortune from a will. As a result, his family changed their lifestyle. Hunting became relatively important in their new upper class life. David Martinez was neither a good hunter nor skilled at sports, consequently his father was disappointed. Nevertheless, he was an excellent student in the Irish Institute of Monterrey. Martinez was always first place in the student honor rolls. Later, Martinez moved to Rome and enrolled in Christ's Legionaries Seminar to become a priest. After just six months he decided he was not suited for the profession.

Back in Monterrey, Mexico, he enrolled at the Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM or Tec de Monterrey) to study electrical engineering. After earning his diploma, he looked for a job but was systematically rejected because his personality did not fit the requirements of companies in a very conservative society as Monterrey was at that time.

He asked a friend's father for a loan to obtain an MBA at Harvard Business School, where he excelled as a student and made acquaintances that were helpful later on. After graduating, he asked his grandmother for a USD300,000 loan to start Fintech in New York. After a year he was able to pay the loan plus interest.

When David Martinez turned 30 in 1987, he decided to found Fintech. He has been a successful financier. One of his most remarkable and polemic negotiations was with debt restructuring of the Mexican chemicals and textile conglomerate CYDSA, one of the companies that rejected him when he was younger. CYDSA agreed to an exchange of debt for equity that would hand control of the company to creditors. Fintech bought USD400 million of CYDSA debt for USD40 million and obtained the 60% of the shares to take control of the company from the founders, the Gonzalez Sada family.

In 2004 Martinez set a record for the highest price paid for a residential property in Manhattan with his $54.7 million purchase of a penthouse apartment.^[1] In 2006 he reportedly set another record for the highest price paid for a piece of art with the purchase of a Jackson Pollock painting from David Geffen. Pollock's painting "No. 5, 1948" sold for $140 million on 1 November 2006.^[2] However, the auction expert Josh Baer indicated that Martinez was not the buyer of the painting.^[1] In addition, Shearman & Sterling LLP issued a press release on behalf of its client, David Martinez, to announce that contrary to recent articles in the press, Mr Martinez does not own the painting or any rights to acquire it.^[3]

According to the newspaper of El Universal from Mexico City, Mr Martinez is from Northern Mexico. Newspaper sources mention that every year he goes to Monterrey to have dinner with his family and that he supports them by sending an allowance every month (to his mother and two sisters). He was one of a few people that worked on relieving Brazil's debt in 2004.

He currently resides in New York and London.