FEBRUARY 2018 WWW.BOATINTERNATIONAL.COM
ON BOARD WITH
Bruce
Grossman
Having graduated through a series of
ever larger Mangustas, the Mexican
soft drinks scion tellsCaroline White
how he finally found a “proper boat”
hecouldcallhome–withfivebars
andasuitejustforshoes
ruce Grossman’s life on the water started
with a bang. “It was an old Chris-Craft
in Tampico,” he says, pointing to a
monochrome image of a classic speedboat,
a blurry figure at the helm, framed on the salon wall of
his 179ft ISA yachtFo r e v e r O n e. “That belonged to my
grandfather. One of the first Chris-Crafts in the world
- all wood. In those days you had to open up the exhaust
vents before you started the engines. The captain got
drunk one night and forgot to open them up, so the
boat blew up. That was a heartbreaker. My grandfather
never bought another boat.”
But it was only the start of the younger Grossman’s
love affair with the sea. The family is, as he puts it, “in
the Coca-Cola business,” one his Texas-born father
Burton started in 1964. Burton died in 1999, leaving
B
Bruce and his sister on the board of one of Mexico’s
most successful businesses. Grupo Continental today
consists of 46 soft drink related corporations across
Mexico – they do everything from sugar refining to
plastics and bottling.
The siblings are often listed among Mexico’s
wealthiest billionaires. But if you met Grossman you
probably wouldn’t guess it. His manner is gentle and
relaxed, he jokes warmly, listens patiently and responds
thoughtfully. There’s no bullet-proof bravado – just
a penchant for pushing tequila on guests
mid-afternoon. “Try the Dragones,” he and his wife
Elsa decide after a brief conference in Spanish.The Grossmans
treat their 179ft
superyacht as a
“mega apartment”
that they can move
to change their
view... or their
neighbors