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Immigration See other Immigration Articles Title: Latino Funds Help Family Businesses With Posterity in Mind PASADENA, Calif. — When Daniel D. Villanueva, a former place kicker for the Los Angeles Rams and the Dallas Cowboys, hung up his football cleats for a career in broadcasting in 1968, he tapped into something big. The fledgling Los Angeles television station he joined helped form the Spanish International Network, which ultimately grew into Univision Communications. *snip* Now what intrigues Mr. Villanueva, 67, most is nurturing small companies and inspiring entrepreneurs to become the backbone of the next generation of Latino businesses. "The new generation is university- trained as opposed to the founder-builders who were not trained," Mr. Villanueva said. He and his son Daniel L. Villanueva, 47, as well as Gabrielle Greene, a longtime investor in media, have formed a new investment fund of almost $100 million. Their company, Fontis Partners, has joined with Rustic Canyon Partners, a fund that invests for the prominent Chandler family of Los Angeles, to form RC Fontis Partners. *snip* Such ethnic generational investment is a growing field, now attracting about $2 billion from pension funds and institutions eager to tap into the growth of the 2.7 million companies owned by Latino American families. To be sure, the still-small size of most Latino family companies limits the amount of investment they can absorb. RC Fontis Partners sets a limit of $5 million to $10 million in any single company. *snip* Recalling an earlier occasion when he co-founded Bastion Capital in 1992, perhaps the first Latino-led investment fund, Mr. Villanueva said, "My instincts told me that the smaller-level, $5 million to $15 million investments were the place where we could do the most good." One entrepreneur whom Mr. Villanueva backed was Thomas Castro, whose El Dorado Communications acquired three radio stations in Texas in 1993, and sold them in 2003, for $140 million. Mr. Castro went on to found Border Media Partners and to acquire six radio stations with the help of an $18 million investment from the Villanuevas and other Latino investors, including the Tony Sanchez family of Laredo, Tex. "It's a time of change for family businesses," Mr. Castro said. "I acquire radio stations from family owners who served a different time and market and change them to Spanish format and music for today's market." Border Media now owns 35 radio stations and recently received $75 million in investment for expansion from Vestar Capital, a private equity fund with $14 billion in assets. *snip* Many public pension funds, including the California Public Employees' Retirement System, which invests in RC Fontis, seek a "double bottom line": a benefit to businesses in minority communities as well as a good financial return on investment. *snip* The ambitions of the Villanuevas and other Latino entrepreneurs these days go beyond strictly financial returns. Mr. Villanueva Sr.; Mr. Castro of Border Media; and Henry G. Cisneros, the former secretary of housing and urban development, are among many other Latino business executives backing the New America Alliance, an organization that first met five years ago in Santa Fe. *snip* Poster Comment: Posterity. I say your civilization because as soon as we started thinking for you it really became our civilization which is of course what this is all about. Evolution, Morpheus, evolution, like the dinosaur. Look out that window. You had your time. The future is our world, Morpheus. The future is our time. Tell me, Mr. Anderson: what good is a phone call if you are... unable to speak?
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