Banorte will issue 308 million new shares and exchange 0.389 of its own shares for each Ixe share.
IXE owns a boutique bank that has cultivated business clients and credit card accounts among Mexico City’s elite, as well as a brokerage arm and mutual funds.
The merged bank will be called Grupo Financiero Banorte-IXE and the deal is expected to close during the first quarter of 2011.
Banorte has more than 1,100 branches and Ixe has 155 branches. The combined entity will be about half the size of Spain’s BBVA Bancomer, the biggest bank in Mexico presently.
Banorte CEO Alejandro Valenzuela said: “We are vindicating Mexican bankers. We are showing that Mexican banks can do it right.”
