Jorge Mas, the CEO and majority owner of MLS team Inter Miami, with co-owner David Beckham. Soccer … [+]
The billionaire owner of Inter Miami has found his golden boy. The Major League Soccer team founded by David Beckham and now principally owned by Cuban-American businessman Jorge Mas and his brother Jose Mas is in the process of signing the man that many call the greatest soccer player in the world, according to a statement from MLS. Lionel Messi, fresh off of a World Cup victory for his home country, Argentina, is Miami bound–though a final agreement has yet to be inked.
The 60-year-old Mas, who became the CEO and managing owner of Inter Miami FC in 2021, now hopes a 35-year-old Messi can help realize Mas’ dream of making Miami “the gateway for soccer, not only in South Florida but in the Americas,” as he described in a 2019 interview.
But a fairytale season for both Messi and Mas would be far from the first taste of success for either man.
Jorge Mas, who Forbes estimates to have a net worth of $1.3 billion, has come a long way. He was born in Miami in 1963, just three years after his father, Jorge Mas Canosa (d. 1997), fled his native Cuba in an effort to escape Fidel Castro’s government, according to a New York Times
Mas Canosa was a staunch opposer of Cuba’s communist regime, leading him to join the CIA- trained Cuban exiles force after arriving in the U.S. Before Jorge was born, his father participated in the Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961, though he never made landfall because his vessel was held back from the beach landing.
After a short stint in the U.S. Army during Jorge Mas’ childhood, Mas Canosa went into business. In 1969, he acquired a small Puerto Rican telephone company called Iglesias y Torres using a $50,000 loan and renamed it Church & Tower, hoping to break into the U.S. market.
Jorge began working for his father’s company in 1984, which, at the time, was mainly responsible for laying cables and installing telephone poles.
Jorge took over Church & Tower from his father in 1994 and transformed the Miami-based firm, which was renamed MasTec
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Mas is largely responsible for taking the company international, executing a string of acquisitions of telecom infrastructure firms in countries like Brazil, Spain, Chile, Peru and Messi’s native Argentina, shortly after taking over the firm.
MasTec brought in $9.8 billion in revenue in 2022, making it one of the largest Hispanic-run U.S. companies. He owns nearly 15% of its shares, which trade on the New York Stock Exchange, a stake currently worth $1.2 billion.
In 1990, Mas cofounded a company called Neff Rentals, a construction equipment and tool rental business he built from a single store in southern Florida to 80 branches. He took it public in 1998, delisted it in 2003 and sold it in 2005 for a reported $510 million; the majority shareholders before the sale were the Mas family and General Electric’s
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Mas began wading into professional sports in 2018, when he joined the ownership group of newly formed Inter Miami, which includes British soccer star David Beckham. Three years later, in 2021, Jorge finalized a buyout with his brother, Jose Mas, to take over majority ownership of the team from Sprint
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Mas has served as the CEO and managing owner of the team since 2021, while Beckham and Mas’ brother Jose Mas share co-ownership. Private equity firm Ares Management
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Mas is also the chairman of the Cuban American National Foundation, a group founded by his father in 1981 focusing on assisting Cuban community members in Miami, Florida.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/devinseanmartin/2023/06/07/who-is-jorge-mas-the-billionaire-owner-behind-lionel-messis-new-team/