Spectrum: Mexico's prince of print
His gold and diamond watch alone would go a long way towards paying off his country's foreign debt, but Mexican newspaper proprietor Mario Vasquez Rana says that until recently his life has been lacking in stimulus.
By his own admission, he had everthing: vast wealth, international acclaim, the friendship of the great. But he needed, as he puts it, 'an amusement'. So, last month he went north of the border, floored his American competitors with a dollars 41 million bid and bought himself United Press International (UPI), one of the world's biggest news agencies.
The fact that UPI is in a financial shambles, having been declared bankrupt seven months ago, has served to what still further Vasquez Rana's once stunted appetite. 'I needed a challenge. I wanted something problematic', he says in his Mexico City office.
Don Mario, as his secretaries and bodyguards call him, is a heavily-built man who, at the age of 53, says he relishes the prospect of a 20-hour working day, as he sets out not only to restore but to expand UPI. The thought of living, literally, in his office holds no horrors for him.
What Don Mario calls his 'office' is in fact a series of room, on a third floor, covering some 1,500 square metres. He has a gymnasium, a sauna and a massage room. Also a bedroom, a private cinema and a bar bigger and better stocked than any pub in London. Behind glass partitions are three small, immaculate gardens. From one a gentle cascade soothes Don Mario's ear. In another a read and gold pheasant delights the eye. The pheasant is an Indian variety flown over in one of Don Mario's two Falcon jets.
'As you see', says Don Mario, in absolute seriousness, 'everything in my office is simple, functional, the basics.'
The room where he works is the size of a tennis court. The desk has 10 telephones. The walls are covered in photographs recording his many meetings with such important people as - Fidel Castro, and the Pope.
Don Mario, who has travelled to 126 countries, says he has received 47 awards from different governments.
Brought up in one of Mexico City's more run-down areas, he and his brothers built up their father's business, a small furniture shop, and converted it into one of the biggest retail chains in Mexico. His fortune made, in 1976 he indulged a long-held passion for writing and bought himself a national newspaper chain.
Journalists in his flagship newspaper, The Sun of Mexico, claim Don Mario has made much of his dollars 500 million on less public projects. It is widely rumoured that he once owned a chain of hotels 'of ill-repute' and that, today, he still has Mexico's only private concession for importing arms and explosives.
Don Mario hints that he sees UPI as a stepping-stone to bigger things. 'Once you get on the train, you can't get off', he smiles. If he fails to make his mark on the international media, it will not be for lack of self-belief. 'I'm a hard man,' he says. 'I'm an international man. I think big'.
By his own admission, he had everthing: vast wealth, international acclaim, the friendship of the great. But he needed, as he puts it, 'an amusement'. So, last month he went north of the border, floored his American competitors with a dollars 41 million bid and bought himself United Press International (UPI), one of the world's biggest news agencies.
The fact that UPI is in a financial shambles, having been declared bankrupt seven months ago, has served to what still further Vasquez Rana's once stunted appetite. 'I needed a challenge. I wanted something problematic', he says in his Mexico City office.
Don Mario, as his secretaries and bodyguards call him, is a heavily-built man who, at the age of 53, says he relishes the prospect of a 20-hour working day, as he sets out not only to restore but to expand UPI. The thought of living, literally, in his office holds no horrors for him.
What Don Mario calls his 'office' is in fact a series of room, on a third floor, covering some 1,500 square metres. He has a gymnasium, a sauna and a massage room. Also a bedroom, a private cinema and a bar bigger and better stocked than any pub in London. Behind glass partitions are three small, immaculate gardens. From one a gentle cascade soothes Don Mario's ear. In another a read and gold pheasant delights the eye. The pheasant is an Indian variety flown over in one of Don Mario's two Falcon jets.
'As you see', says Don Mario, in absolute seriousness, 'everything in my office is simple, functional, the basics.'
The room where he works is the size of a tennis court. The desk has 10 telephones. The walls are covered in photographs recording his many meetings with such important people as - Fidel Castro, and the Pope.
Don Mario, who has travelled to 126 countries, says he has received 47 awards from different governments.
Brought up in one of Mexico City's more run-down areas, he and his brothers built up their father's business, a small furniture shop, and converted it into one of the biggest retail chains in Mexico. His fortune made, in 1976 he indulged a long-held passion for writing and bought himself a national newspaper chain.
Journalists in his flagship newspaper, The Sun of Mexico, claim Don Mario has made much of his dollars 500 million on less public projects. It is widely rumoured that he once owned a chain of hotels 'of ill-repute' and that, today, he still has Mexico's only private concession for importing arms and explosives.
Don Mario hints that he sees UPI as a stepping-stone to bigger things. 'Once you get on the train, you can't get off', he smiles. If he fails to make his mark on the international media, it will not be for lack of self-belief. 'I'm a hard man,' he says. 'I'm an international man. I think big'.