Grupo Gigante appointed José Antonio Meade Kuribreña on October 16, 2026 as independent director and non-executive chairman of its Board of Directors, a position he will formally assume on January 1, 2027, according to El Financiero. The appointment comes as the conglomerate negotiates the purchase of the restaurant chain La Casa de Toño.
Meade joins the board of a group that operates Toks, Office Depot, Petco, Shake Shack, El Farolito and Casa Ideas, and that concentrates its businesses in the restaurant, retail and real estate sectors. According to Expansión, the former Secretary of Finance has chaired the Board of HSBC México since February 2026, has been an independent director of HSBC Holdings since March 2019 and sits on the boards of Chedraui, Nemak and Fibra Uno. The move matters for Mexico because it takes place at a conglomerate that grows through acquisitions in consumer and restaurants, and because, as Expansión reports, the former official found room in the governance bodies of large companies after leaving the front line of partisan politics.
The succession takes place ahead of the retirement of Ángel Losada Moreno, executive chairman of the board since 2003. On the same date, Luis Sayeg Seade was appointed independent director; he was general director of Administration of Inversiones and of the then Afore Citibanamex until his retirement in 2019. In July, El Financiero reported that Grupo Gigante was analyzing the purchase of La Casa de Toño, a transaction with an amount placed above 400 million dollars that covers the chain's 81 restaurants; the negotiation was advancing in August. Meade's public career includes the secretariats of Energy, Finance, Foreign Affairs and Social Development in the governments of Felipe Calderón and Enrique Peña Nieto, in addition to his presidential candidacy in 2018.
The calendar is set: Meade's chairmanship of the Grupo Gigante board begins on January 1, 2027, with the purchase of La Casa de Toño still in progress. The consolidation of the Mexican restaurant sector is the next data point to watch.
This note was written with the assistance of artificial intelligence from verified sources and reviewed by a human editor before publication.