Forbes Mexico released earlier this year its list of Richest Men of Central America. Their research showed that these men had reinvented themselves, they had invested in emerging markets and diversified their businesses, which is a reflection of their vision and abilities. The list includes 9 names, only one is Costa Rican.

Although the Central American region with a population of over 46 million has several wealthy families, it is difficult to identify them and get a true picture of their fortune.

“Central America is one of the hardest places to carry out this type of investigation, because there is not a lot of transparency”, stated Blake Schmidt, American journalist part of the Bloomberg Agency; “In other countries there is structure and corporate laws that make things easier, rules, that companies have to follow to be listed as public companies, even private companies that are not listed have basic information available such as income and profit, but in Central America this is not necessarily the case”, concluded Schmidt in an interview with BBC Mundo.

According to Kerry Dolan from Forbes Mexico, the fact that the main Central American fortunes belong wo multigenerational families or extended families, makes things harder.

Forbes was still able to come up with a list of four individual fortunes in Central America that exceed the US$1 billion; which includes in first place from Guatemala, the president of Tigo Phone Services, Mario López Estrada, in second place Carlos Pellas from Nicaragua, president of Grupo Pellas, third place from El Salvador, Ricardo Poma, president of Grupo Poma and in fourth place also from El Salvador Robert Kriete, cofounder of Avianca Holdings and president of Grupo Kriete.

In Costa Rica they couldn’t list a billionaire “There might be someone, but I never felt confident enough to publish something, Costa Rica is one of the countries in Central America in which the wealth is less concentrated: there are big companies, but they are not in the hands of a few”, assured Schmidt.

The only Costa Rican to be part of the list, and with a wealth that is not clearly determined but estimated in US$400 million, is Francis Durman Esquivel, president of Manga Rica , Grupo Montecristo and Yanber Corporation, he is also the general director of Aliaxis Latin America.

Durman started out as operations manager in the family business Durman Esquivel, he became the CEO in 1984 and under his guide the company expanded to Mexico, Central America, Peru and Colombia. In 2007 Durman Esquivel became part of Aliaxis global leader in the manufacturing and distribution of advanced plastic piping systems for which Durman took on the general direction.

Grupo Montecristo, on the other hand, is the majority shareholder of the Hospital Metropolitano, it also has free trade zones, Propark and Parque Empresarial del Este, Sislocar logistic services and Aerolíneas Trans Costa Rica a helicopter charter service, among others; Manga Rica is a mango export business.

Back in 2014 Forbes Mexico had also included Durman in the list of 12 most important millionaires in Central America, in this list another Costa Rican was included, Ramón Mendiola, general director of Florida Ice & Farm.