Jenkins found his most fearsome and effective ally in Maximino Ávila Camacho, brother of future president Manuel Ávila Camacho, who helped him resist President Cárdenas’s plan to expropriate Atencingo. Jenkins largely bankrolled Maximino’s gubernatorial campaign of 1936 and made loans to his administration. In turn, when Doña Lola convinced Cárdenas to confiscate Atencingo, Maximino countered with a plan that gave the land to a peasant cooperative while letting Jenkins retain the mill, the plantation’s profit center. Still, the Cárdenas era was a tricky time for the business elite, so Jenkins diversified his holdings, making venture-capital entrées into banking, the automotive sector, and film and returning to the textile sector. In all cases he hid his participation, from both the public and the IRS, through the use of prestanombres (straw men). Jenkins’s move toward nationwide influence also emerged in politics, as he made a huge covert loan to Manuel’s presidential campaign.
A Test of Managerial Discretion and Market Efficiency in the Public Venture Capital Industry
