Fox Ends Plan to Name Execs to Pemex Board

Mexican President Vicente Fox, bowing to growing pressure from opposition legislators, backtracked on a plan to appoint top executives to the board of directors of state-owned oil company Petroleos Mexicanos. Fox said that after listening to growing opposition he would not longer seek to appoint four top executives to the board of the world’s fifth-largest oil company. “We have withdrawn the board we had appointed for Pemex,” Fox said. Pemex is still likely to hear the advice of the top executives as Fox agreed to create an advisory committee to the oil company’s board, though they won’t have any power to influence the oil company’s course. The executives are Carlos Slim, who controls Mexico’s largest telephone company Telefonos de Mexico; Lorenzo Zambrano, chief executive and chairman of Cemex, the world’s No. 3 cement maker; Alfonso Romo, chairman of seed and insurance group Pulsar International; and Rogelio Rebollo, president of PepsiCo Inc.’s Frito-Lay division for Latin America.