Succession Looms for Latin American Families Swaying $3 Trillion

Heirs are looking to branch out in a region where family-owned firms account for three-quarters of companies worth $1 billion or more.

A Grupo Coppel department store in Mexico City.

Photographer: Alejandro Cegarra/Bloomberg
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Agustin Coppel Gomez was born into one of Mexico’s greatest retailing fortunes, but he has a lot of company.

He and his three siblings are among 31 third-generation descendants of the family’s late patriarch, Enrique Coppel Tamayo, who founded the business in 1941 and later introduced a credit card so that his working-class customers could buy clothes and furniture at his stores.