Carlos Slim Helu expressed the opinion that people should work only three days a week, devoting 10-11 hours a day to work. People should spend four days off with their families, taking care of their health and education. At the same time, 75-year-old Carlos Slim is sure that now people are retiring too early. We must allow them to work fully until they are 70 years old, and for those who feel strong enough, even longer. Three days - work, four - rest and do other things.
Carlos Slim Helu was born on January 28, 1940 in Mexico City. He was the fifth child in a Lebanese Catholic family. His father, Julian Slim, came to Mexico in 1902 to escape compulsory conscription into the army of the Ottoman Empire.
Of all the children, Carlos was the smartest, most talented and diligent. In addition, the boy had a knack for mathematics, which helped him get into investing. Carlos made his first “adult” investments at the age of 12, purchasing shares of a Mexican bank. And Carlos Slim Elu earned his first million when the young man was only 17 years old.
Success in business did not blind either Carlos or his father. The young man entered the National University of Mexico, where he studied construction while continuing to play on the stock exchange. During his senior year, Carlos taught algebra and programming to students from other courses.
At the age of 25, Carlos left the university with a diploma in civil engineering, but he never began working in his specialty. By that time, young Slim already owned quite a significant capital, part of which he invested in the purchase of hotels, insurance business and trade. In the latter industry, Slim had an idea. It was to ensure that the prices of goods in his stores were affordable for ordinary Mexicans.
During the crisis of the 80s, Carlos Slim turned his attention to the mining industry. As a result, he becomes the owner of the Frisco Corporation, a leader in the national mining and chemical industries.
Slim's influence on the Mexican economy becomes such that every Mexican encounters his companies or products. At this time, Slim begins his ascent to the heights of political Olympus. True, Slim does not go directly into politics, preferring to establish and maintain good relations with the authorities.
Carlos Slim continued to explore the promising telecommunications market. In the late 90s and early 2000s, Slim became the owner of 30 percent of the shares of the Latin American consortium of cellular operators America Movil. In 2008, he acquired shares in The New York Times and Citibank. In 2002, he acquired the liabilities of bankrupt WorldCom at a bargain price and became the largest shareholder of MCI, which was formed in its place.
Personal life and family
In 1966, Carlos Slim married a girl named Somaia Domit Germayel, who was also of Lebanese origin and was the cousin of former Lebanese President Gemayel.
He lived happily with her for 32 years until her death in 1999.
Museum named after his late wife
Glamor magazines continue to seriously call Carlos Slim “the most desirable widower” in Mexico. However, he is not attracted by glamorous fame, and he is indifferent to young beauties.
The Slim family has a number of well-established traditions, one of which is spending a group holiday on the west coast of Mexico. In the summer, all family members, including grandchildren, get together to spend a few weeks somewhere on the beach in the Gulf of California.
The love of family was instilled in him and his brothers from early childhood. Their father and mother taught them to enjoy life and realize everyone’s responsibility to the family. The issue of responsibility has always been the basis of the Slim family philosophy. It was this feeling that helped Carlos Slim become the richest man in the world. Over the next 25 years, the wealthy and influential Slim family could become an extremely positive factor in the development of Latin America.
Carlos has 6 children, three sons and three daughters.
The eldest son, Carlos Slim Domit (born 1967), is the chairman of the holding company Grupo Carso.
Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helu has achieved the almost impossible - he has pushed Americans out of the top ranks of the ranking of the world's richest people. Experts estimate that Carlos Slim's personal wealth amounts to 8% of Mexico's gross economic product.
The famous Mexican businessman Carlos Slim Helu has held the honorary title of the richest man in the world for several years. This billionaire was able to take this place, beating the Americans, but no one had done this for 16 years.
Research by Forbes magazine suggests that Carlos Slim Helu in 2010 surpassed Bill Gates himself in terms of the value of his own business assets. By the way, the difference was small, only half a billion dollars, but this was enough to obtain the status of the richest person on Earth.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that Carlos Slim Helu's personal net worth is about eight percent of Mexico's gross domestic product. The numbers are impressive, and you can’t argue with that.
The life story of Carlos Slim has long become mystical in his homeland. Almost all Mexicans have at least once heard the fairy tale that the poor son of a Libyan immigrant could become a powerful autocrat who currently possesses countless treasures. However, in reality, things were not always so rosy and cloudless.
Carlos Slim Helu was born on January 28, 1940. His father once immigrated from Libya, and his mother was the daughter of a successful Libyan merchant, who resignedly followed her husband. In this simple way, Julian Slim, Carlos's father, wanted to escape from serving in the army of the Ottoman Empire. The family came to Mexico in 1902.
Julian had good business acumen, and therefore, having arrived at a new place, he decided to open a real estate business. After working until 1920, Carlos' father bought a building located in the business part of Mexico City and opened a supermarket in it. Julian's trading business developed successfully.
Gradually, he involved all six children in the business, and constantly demanded talent, diligence and devotion from them. For their work, the children received good pocket money, and therefore learned to manage with special zeal. Carlos's business sense was evident literally in the first grade. The teenager was interested in stock investing, and having fully mastered all the rules of this work, he managed to make his first million at the age of seventeen.
Without giving up investing and working in this direction, Karl successfully studied at the Faculty of Civil Engineering of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. As a final year student, he began teaching algebra, as well as the relatively new science of linear programming. In 1961, Carlos Slim Helu received a diploma, but did not want to work in his specialty.
Carlos decided to invest the significant capital that he managed to accumulate in the development of the insurance business. In addition, he bought the Sanborns chain of hotels and stores, and made the cost of goods and services affordable for ordinary Mexicans with average incomes. The capitalization of his business constantly increased due to the fact that he used his irreplaceable strategy - buy goods cheaply, update or improve them, and then sell them at a higher price.
In 1982, Mexico was unable to pay its foreign debt and therefore officially defaulted. This, naturally, led to a large-scale economic crisis, in which investors tried to get rid of solid assets for pennies. Carlos Slim took advantage of this panic situation, and during the crisis he was able to buy many promising companies. This is how the investment holding Carso Group ended up in his hands.
He then became interested in ore and coal mining, and this activity soon became part of a diversified syndicate of the Carso Group. Over time, Carlos was able to make his Frisco company a leader in the national mining industry, and open another promising industry - the chemical industry.
In the late eighties, the number of companies in the Carso Group syndicate increased so much that almost every second resident of Mexico regularly encountered them every day in certain conditions.
Carlos Slim was able to acquire not only economic, but also political assets. The competent management of these assets was made possible thanks to his extensive knowledge. He established close contacts with many high-ranking officials and representatives of the Mexican government. His friendship with Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari was especially valuable.
Detractors say that Slim used his connections with officials for his own gain, in particular, during the privatization of the Telmex telephone company. The details of the cooperation between the president and the entrepreneur were known only to them, but throughout the presidential term this relationship caused a storm of indignation.
Such a blow to his reputation did not upset Carlos Slim Helu too much, and the construction of his financial empire continued. For five years, he carried out organizational measures that made it possible to streamline the work of the empire. No crisis could break this colossus, which guaranteed 10 billion annual turnover and about a billion net profit.
In the nineties, Slim's company received a monopoly in the telephone market. Soon the sphere of providing Internet services was also developed. Despite the fact that computer technology was always alien to Carlos Slim, he was able to understand computers and found this area to be very promising.
The entrepreneur is constantly worried about expanding his business outside of Mexico. Thanks to his competent work, his company currently occupies a dominant position in the telecommunications market throughout Latin America.
Analyzing the success story of Carlos Slim Helu, we can highlight several secrets of this man’s popularity. He was not the heir to millions, but he always had a stable income. His current status is a personal achievement, largely based on business acumen, hard work and entrepreneurial talent. This person is known for his frugality and modest lifestyle.
Planets of Bill Gates, founder and ideological inspirer of Microsoft. Carlos Slim became the first Mexican to conquer the pyramidal top of billionaires. This became a sensation for world business, given the fact that over the past sixteen years it was done by a person without American citizenship.
How to be born a billionaire?
On January 28, 1940, the future Mexican businessman and philanthropist Carlos Slim Helu was born into the family of a Mexican realtor of Arab origin, Julian Slim Haddad. This was the fifth child in the family of Julian Slim Haddad and Linda Ellu Atta. The business acumen of Carlos's father, who moved from Lebanon to Mexico at the age of fourteen, quickly allowed the boy to adapt to the world of business. By the age of 30, the father of the future billionaire had several retail outlets in the business part of the capital of the Latin American state. Julian Slim passed on his management skills to his children, of whom he had six.
First investment lessons
Carlos Slim's success story begins at the age of seventeen. At that time, the young man, having the instincts of a stock investor, made his first million. Carlos Slim recalls his first lessons on profitable investing as follows: “My father forced each of us, his children, to keep a special notebook of income and expenses. Coming home from school, we wrote down all our expenses for the day. Father carefully reviewed the records and assessed each of us. These evening gatherings with the whole family over dinner became a real life lesson for me and my relatives. In modern terms, it was a master class.”
The recommendations of the enterprising father were heard by Carlos. The young man gets his first investment experience at the age of twelve. With the pocket money he saved, which his father gave him every day, at the age of twelve, Carlos Slim bought shares in Banco Nacional de Mexico, the second largest bank in Mexico after BBVA Bancomer.
Carlos Slim: biography of the future billionaire
Slim continues to invest money in profitable businesses, while still managing to study at the National Autonomous University of Mexico at the Faculty of Civil Engineering. The student’s extraordinary abilities were appreciated by the university leadership. In his last year, Carlos Slim (photo can be seen in the article) was recommended by the university administration to teach linear programming and algebra to junior students at the university.
However, having received a higher education diploma from the National Autonomous University of Mexico in 1961, Carlos Slim did not work in the engineering specialty he received at the university; he was attracted by investments.
The birth of a financial empire
Carlos Slim begins his career as a stockbroker. Working 14 hours a day, in 1965 he managed to make a profit from private investments of 400 thousand dollars. This inspires Carlos to take on larger projects. This is how the brokerage company “Inversora Bursátil” appears, which becomes the foundation for the creation of a large family business.
In 1966, the future billionaire by the first letters of the name Slim Ellu and his wife Sumaya Domit Gemayel organized the real estate agency “Inmobiliaria Carso”. A successful commercial project quickly brings the necessary profit and becomes the financial basis for creating the future Grupo Carso empire. At the end of the 60s, Carlos Slim's financial fortune reached just over $50 million.
Carlos Slim: biography of the 70s
Thanks to smart investing, Carlos Slim's financial well-being is growing every year. By 1972, he acquired seven more enterprises, mainly production of construction equipment. In 1976, Slim became the owner of a 60 percent stake in Galas de Mexico, a small printing house that produces cigar boxes.
The investment in the project is one million dollars. Within four years, the entire production of the Galas de Mexico company belonged to him. The focus of Carlos Slim's growing business in subsequent years was:
- production of non-ferrous metals;
- airlines;
- industrial and civil construction;
- chemical and pulp and paper industry;
- insurance investment.
Growing financial power
In 1982, the Mexican economy experienced a financial crisis. Banking activities were collapsing, some went bankrupt, others were looking for sources of financing. The foreign investor turned his back on the Latin American state, many commercial projects had to be closed, and companies suffered multimillion-dollar losses.
However, Carlos' keen investment eye strictly monitored companies that could generate profits in the future. Buying assets at reduced prices, Slim ultimately had quite solid income thanks to successful reinvestment.
In 1985, at the height of Mexico's economic downturn, he bought Empresas, the only state-owned monopoly mining and chemical company producing gold, silver, copper and other non-ferrous metals, for $50 million.
Master of Telecommunications
In the early 90s, Carlos Slim significantly increased his capital. Mexico privatizes its telecommunications industry and Grupo Carso acquires Telmex from the Mexican government. Then there was a major deal with the acquisition of a controlling stake from the Porcelanite company. Gradually, Grupo Carso is gaining momentum, and from a company known only to Latin America is growing into a global brand. The further chronology of events is also impressive:
America is ahead!
In 1999, Carlos Slim's gaze turns towards the United States of America. Expanding his business interests beyond Latin America, the billionaire is targeting overseas investments from his northern neighbor. Soon, Carlos Slim achieves some success and becomes a prominent figure on the American business scene.
In 2002, the famous Forbes magazine included him in the list of billionaires, estimating Carlos Slim's total fortune at $11 billion. Since 2003, he has managed to buy large blocks of shares in a number of large American retailers. In 2006, behind only Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, Carlos Slim came in third place with a capital of $30 billion.
Within a year, Carlos becomes the richest man on earth. Today his fortune is estimated at $81.5 billion, which allows him to maintain the world championship among the world's moneybags.
Personal life
The billionaire was happily married for 32 years. His only love was Soumai Domit Gemayel, a girl of Lebanese origin and cousin of the former President of Lebanon. The wife has been involved in charity work all her life. The main idea of her life was to create a legal framework for organ donation, a project that was financed by Carlos Slim. Family meant a lot to the Mexican tycoon.
He believed that a successful marriage makes a person strong and independent, just like money. Unfortunately, everything has its end. In 1999, his wife passed away; in the same year, Carlos Slim underwent a complex heart operation to bypass the coronary vessels. The main thing that Sumaya Domit Gemayel and Carlos Slim managed to do in this life were their children: Carlos, Marco Antonio, Patrick, Sumaya, Vanessa and Johanna.
Slim's fortune gave birth to a business empire in the family. Today, the company's shares are acquired not only on behalf of Carlos Slim, but also from his children. His three eldest sons hold key positions in the Carso group of companies.
There are no computers in Carlos Slim's office. He stores all his financial data in paper form. The Mexican tycoon's business empire has grown to such an extent that Carlos himself jokingly says that he does not know what he now owns.
Real estate
Where does Carlos Slim live and what does he own? The home of the Mexican billionaire is located in Lomas de Chapultepec, one of the most prestigious areas of modern Mexico City. The modest home, built forty years ago, is located near the place where Carlos spent his childhood and youth.
In addition, over the years he acquired:
- the former New York Times building on West 43rd Street;
- 11-story building on First Avenue in New York;
- 10-story building at the corner of Wilshere and Santa Monica Boulevard;
- two mansions in Detroit;
- mansion on 5th Avenue in New York, with a total area of 20 thousand square meters.
Carlos's main real estate is located in the United States of America. In May 2014, K. Slim presented to the world community his own aquarium, Inbursa, the largest in Latin America.
Charity
Slim has always been ironic about philanthropy, criticizing Warren Buffett and Bill Gates for their annual 5 percent contributions to various charitable foundations.
He said: “I am not God or Santa Claus, so that by helping the poor I can solve their problems.” Everything changed in 1999, when his beloved wife died, and Carlos himself found himself on the border between life and death. After a successful coronary bypass operation, Carlos Slim said: “I finally realized that after death I will not be able to take my billions with me.”
Today, Carlos Slim's fund has $4 billion in its account. Slim's foundation donated $100 million to the national Laptop for a Child program. The charity's idea is to provide every schoolchild in Mexico with a personal computer. Carlos also responded to US President Bill Clinton's idea of fighting poverty in Latin America.
Recognition of merit
Carlos Slim's long entrepreneurial career has not gone unnoticed:
- 1985 Entrepreneurial Medal of Honor from the Mexican Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
- 1991 "Golden Patron" from the American Academy of Achievement.
- 1998 Order of Leopold II from the Belgian government.
- 2003-2004. "Best CEO" badge from a Latin trade magazine.
- 2008 National Order of the Cedar from the Lebanese government.
- 2011. The Hispanic Society of America honors Carlos Slim with the Sorolla Medal for his contributions to art and culture.
- year 2012. "Honorary Doctor" from George Washington University (USA).
Tips from a tycoon
The whole world knows the Mexican billionaire as the author of unique aphorisms and sayings. Quotes from Carlos Slim:
- Success in personal life makes a person stronger.
- Many people change the world for the better for their children, but I, on the contrary, change my children for the better so that they change the world.
- Wealth is a blooming garden, where you need to share not the trees, but its fruits.
- Try not to make small mistakes anymore.
- If you depend on the opinions of competitors, then you are dead.
- To foresee the future, you need to know the past.
It is difficult to disagree with these aphorisms, especially knowing who said them.
Carlos Slim Helu is a Mexican billionaire, businessman, one of the richest people on the planet. Interestingly, it was he who was the first in sixteen years to overtake the Americans in the global ranking of billionaires, taking the leading position. According to Forbes magazine, Carlos Slim surpassed even Bill Gates in 2010 due to the growth in the value of his companies' assets. True, not by much, only 500 million dollars. However, this was enough for Carlos Slim Helu to become the richest man on the planet. His fortune is estimated at approximately $53.5 billion. This businessman's personal capital, according to some media estimates, is about 8 percent of Mexico's total GDP.
Origin of Carlos Slim
The success story of this billionaire is very informative and interesting. Carlos Slim Helu was born in Mexico City in 1940, on January 28. He was the fifth child in the family of a Lebanese refugee and the daughter of a successful Lebanese merchant. Julian Slim, his father, moved to Mexico in 1902. The fact is that the family wanted to save Julian from serving in the troops of the Ottoman Empire.
First million earned
Carlos' father had business acumen. In his new place, he started the real estate business. Then, in 1920, Julian purchased real estate in downtown Mexico City and opened a supermarket here. This man managed to found a successful trading business in Mexico City, in which all six of his children began working. From them he demanded diligence, talent and devotion. In return, the children received large pocket money, which they had to learn to manage from the first grade of school. Carlos had good business sense. The teenager, with the blessing of his father, began to engage in stock investing, the rules of which he mastered at the age of seventeen. It was then that Carlos Slim earned his first million.
University studies
Continuing to work successfully in this direction, he also managed to study at the university at the Faculty of Civil Engineering. In his final years, Carlos Slim taught algebra and linear programming in other streams. In 1961, he received a diploma, but did not work in his profession.
Personal life
In 1966, Carlos married Somaya Domit Germayel. This girl was also of Lebanese descent. She was the cousin of Gemayel, the Lebanese president. The couple were happily married for 32 years, until Somaiya's death in 1999. Today, Slim is considered, despite his extra pounds, double chin and advanced age, to be an eligible bachelor. However, he is indifferent to beauties, and glamorous fame does not appeal to him.
Carlos' strategy
Having accumulated a decent amount of capital, he used it in the insurance business, as well as the purchase of hotels and Sanborns stores. Carlos Slim's focus in retailing was to reduce the cost of consumer goods, making them accessible to poorer Mexican shoppers. This became the basis of his business, his growing capitalization. Buying cheap, then upgrading and either selling high or joining the growing family empire is the Mexican tycoon's constant strategy.
Foundation of the famous holding
The country defaulted in 1982 due to the inability to pay off its external debt. A large-scale economic crisis occurred in Mexico. For a few centimes, investors got rid of the substantial assets they had accumulated. Carlos Slim, whose biography is the topic of our article, took advantage of the panic situation. He used the money left over from his father and bought many promising companies for next to nothing. It was then that the famous investment holding Carso Group was founded. This name is made up of the first syllables of the names of Carlos and Somaya, his wife.
Expansion into various market sectors
The next step was the mining of coal and ore. The Frisco Corporation, which is still part of the Group Carso syndicate, has become a leader in the country's mining and chemical industries.
The expansion of companies owned by Carlos into various sectors of the market by the end of the 1980s had reached such a scale that every second resident of the country, as well as every second enterprise, in one way or another encountered every day at least one of the many structures owned by this millionaire, being consumers the goods and services it produces.
Political assets
Carlos Slim, whose fortune was already very large at that time, in addition to economic assets, also acquired political ones. His contacts with high-ranking Mexican officials are informal and friendly. Among them, the most valuable was the friendship with Carlos Salinas de Gortari, the president of this country in 1988-1994. Slim's ill-wishers argue that the personal sympathies of the Mexican president allegedly played to the millionaire's advantage when the question arose of the privatization of the state telecommunications company Telmex, which at that time, and for many years later, was a monopolist in the Mexican communications services market.
Acquisition of Telmex
De Gortari, who pursued a tough course on the privatization of state-owned enterprises and deregulation of the economy, decided to send a number of companies to auction, including Telmex. A group of investors, led by Carlos Slim Helu, won the tender. Slim paid for the stake he received for several years with money from the proceeds that the acquired company received. Carlos, by investing in politics, secured the support of the Mexican government for his business for many years.
The shocking fact of the acquisition of Telmex caused outrage in society, a storm of indignation in government circles and in the press. It led to a whole series of mass proceedings. The process ended in nothing, but all this time the president was forced to explain himself to the public and the government.
Work at Telmex
Meanwhile, Carlos Slim Helu continued to build a financial empire. His biography during these years is marked by the fact that he directed all his efforts to work in the acquired company. It took him five years to put it in order: to rebuild the technical base, streamline corporate governance, and create a range of services. These efforts were not in vain - the reconstruction, carried out over five years, allowed the company in 1995 to avoid a national disaster that devalued the Mexican peso. Telmex, thus, met the new stage of development of the Mexican industry not as a decrepit company with government protection, but by acting as the leader of the country's economy and as the main supplier of telecommunications services.
Telmex enjoyed a monopoly in the Mexican market throughout the 1990s. The company even now occupies about 80-90 percent of the country's fixed-line market, as well as about 70% of the mobile market.
New companies within the holding and new cooperation
In 1996, the Group Carso syndicate was spun off into a holding company called Carso Global Telecom. The main task was to coordinate the technical, organizational and financial resources of the Elu group. Subsequently, the holding included the Condumex company, which produces telecommunications equipment, as well as Prodigy, the first provider in Mexico, and also a pioneer of commercial web activities.
Carlos Slim invested $1.5 billion in 1999 to control several American firms that operate cellular telephone centers and fiber optic networks in Puerto Rico and Florida.
Together with SBC, in February 2000, he became a co-owner of Network Access Solutions, a well-known Internet provider. Cooperation with Microsoft made it possible to triple the number of Internet users, which led to an increase in sales of computer equipment.
a Christmas gift
Carlos, it should be said, has always been afraid of the IT industry and computer technology. However, everything changed at Christmas, when Carlos Slim Helu received a modern laptop as a gift from his sons. The family didn't make a mistake with their choice. Perhaps it was this laptop that changed Slim’s attitude towards the telecommunications segment, which was the reason for working in this direction.
Conquering the Latin American market
Over time, Carlos began to look for opportunities to expand his business beyond his country. He sought to conquer the Latin American market. To do this, Slim began buying up regional telecom operators. In 2000, he acquired a number of telephone operators that had gone bankrupt due to the financial crisis, which provided the millionaire with a dominant position in the telecommunications market throughout Latin America.
Carlos Slim today
The mirror of Mexican evolution is Carlos Slim Helu. This is an entrepreneur who uses connections in the government apparatus, but is far from the ideals of free competition and an open market. On the other hand, this is, of course, a talented person who is aimed not only at acquisitiveness, but also at creation. Telmex, after all, not only collected all the profits and benefits of the monopolist. Under Slim's leadership, over the first ten years the company modernized its networks and quadrupled the number of subscribers. From the late 1990s and over the next ten years, 30 million Mexicans - people with low incomes - gained access to mobile communications.
The richest man in the world, Mexican Carlos Slim, has been steadily holding a leading position in the ranking of one of the most authoritative and well-known economic publications in the world, the American Forbes magazine, for more than three years. Today, the name of Carlos Slim is known all over the world - the Mexican communications tycoon of Arab origin created a sensation back in 2010, becoming the first non-American (non-US citizen) in 16 years to rise to the peak of the Forbes pyramid, displacing Bill Gates himself. Carlos made this breakthrough thanks to a rapid 27 percent jump in the cost of shares of America Moville, the largest cellular operator in Latin America, from March to June 2007. Slim owns 62% of the shares of this company, so the rise in stock prices directly affected his personal condition.
The future “richest man in the world” started small - at the age of 12 he invested his first savings in shares of Banco Nacional de México. Carlos owes his entrepreneurial acumen to his father, who in early childhood gave each of his sons a notebook and forced them to write down all their income and expenses, thereby teaching them to constantly monitor the balance of earnings and expenses. All notebooks were regularly looked through and analyzed at the family table, as a result of which the “winner” was determined - the most successful, enterprising and “rich” of them.
At the age of 17, Carlos Slim earned 200 pesos a week working at his father's company. Then Carlos entered the National Autonomous University of Mexico to major in Civil Engineering, while simultaneously teaching algebra and linear programming there.
After graduating from university, Slim began his career as a trader, gradually forming his own brokerage firm, which subsequently expanded significantly through successful investments in individual businesses, ranging from the construction and manufacturing industries to retail and restaurants.
In 1965, the investment firm Inversora Burstil became part of Carlos Slim's company, then Carlos bought Jarritos-del-Sur. By 1966, his firm was worth $40 million. Early in his career, Slim focused on real estate, construction and mining companies. In 1972, the enterprising Mexican acquired 7 more enterprises of this kind, including a construction equipment rental company, in 1976 he bought a 60% stake in the printing business, and in 1980 he strengthened his position through the formation of Grupo Galas - the main company of his conglomerate, which included many industrial, construction, mining, trading, food and tobacco enterprises.
In 1982, the Mexican economy was hit hard by a sharp drop in oil prices. Carlos Slim, taking advantage of the moment, buys many Mexican enterprises in whole or in part at bargain prices (by acquiring a nominal or controlling stake). These included metals giant Reynolds Aluminio, Mexico's premier tire manufacturer General Popo, hotel chain Bimex hotels and grocery retailer Sanborns. In addition, Slim's investment holding acquires a 40% Mexican stake in British American Tobacco and a 50% stake in Hershey. At the same time, Carlos looked into the financial sector, acquiring the company Seguros de M?xico and on its basis, with the help of the additionally purchased Fianzas La Guardiana and Casa de Bolsa Inbursa, he created the largest financial company in Mexico, Grupo Financiero Inbursa. Most of the funds for such colossal expenses came from sales of the revived tobacco company Cigatam, also acquired by Slim at the time of the decline of the Mexican economy. In addition, many more enterprises in various economic niches were bought and by 1990 Grupo Galas finally entered the world market.
Also in 1990, Slim, together with France T?l?com and Southwestern Bell Corporation, bought Telmex landline telephone companies owned by the Mexican government. By 2006, 90% of Mexico's landlines were run by Telmex, while Carlos's other company, Telcel, handled almost eighty percent of mobile phones. Telcel was created from the company Radiom?vil Dipsa. In 1991, Carlos Slim bought Hoteles Calinda (today OSTAR Grupo Hotelero), and in 1993 he increased his stake in General Tire and Grupo Aluminio to a controlling stake.
In 1996, Grupo Carso was divided into three companies - Carso Global Telecom, Grupo Carso, and Invercorporaci?n, and in 1997 Slim bought the Mexican share of the international retail chain Sears Roebuck. In 1999, Slim expanded his business interests beyond Latin America - he created Telmex USA and acquired a stake in Tracfone, a US cellular telephone company. At the same time, Carso Infraestructura is created at Construcci?n as part of Grupo Carso, responsible for the activities of construction and engineering companies included in the holding.
In 2000, Am?rica Telecom was created, a holding company for Am?rica M?vil, gradually buying out shares in various cellular telephone companies outside Mexico (including the Brazilian ATL and Telecom Americas, the Argentine Techtel, as well as cellular operators in Guatemala and Ecuador). In subsequent years, Carlos Slim's investment activities expanded to telephone companies in Colombia, Nicaragua, Peru, Chile, Honduras and El Salvador. In 2005, Carlos created the IDEAL agency, which is engaged in the development and employment of qualified personnel in Latin America, and at the same time Slim invested in the Volaris airline.
Having accumulated 50.1% of the shares of the tobacco company Cigatam, Carlos Slim reduces his holdings by selling most of them to the tobacco giant Philip Morris in 2007 for $1.1 billion, and also sells his entire stake to Porcelanite for $800 million. At the same time, Carlos buys the rights to the Saks name and opens Saks Fifth Avenue in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The following year, Slim acquired a 6.4% stake in the media giant New York Times (by 2012, Carlos's share had increased to 8%). On December 8, 2007, Grupo Carso announced that 103 CompUSA stores would be sold or liquidated to put an end to the brand, while the IT portion of CompUSA continued under the name Telvista with main corporate offices in Dallas, Texas and Danville, Virginia. Today Telvista has five centers in Mexico (three in Tijuana, one in Mexicali and one in Mexico City).
Today Slim owns the Grupo Carso holding, which controls a number of large Mexican companies, mainly in the communications sector - Tel?fonos de M?xico, Altria Group, Telcel, Am?rica M?vil and the like. In 2010, Carlos displaced Bill Gates from the pedestal of the richest person on the planet, “overtaking” him by only half a billion - Slim’s fortune at that time reached $53.5 billion.
In March 2011, Carlos's fortune was estimated at $74 billion. Over the year it increased by $20.5 billion, but in 2012 it dropped to $69 billion, which did not prevent him, however, from remaining on the first line of the Forbes ranking. By December 2012, Slim had “recovered,” bringing his net worth to $75.5 billion. Overall, the wealth of the richest man in the world over the past three years has fluctuated between 5% and 8% of Mexico’s annual GDP.
The richest man in the world does not forget about his country - the Carlos Slim Foundation annually allocates unprecedented amounts to finance educational, cultural and medical projects in Mexico. He became known as one of the world's largest philanthropists after founding the Telmex charitable foundation in 1995, in addition to the then non-profit Carlos Slim Foundation, created back in 1986.
In 2007, Slim allocated $4 billion to create health, education and sports institutes under the management of Grupo Carso. Among the merits of the Telmex Foundation is the organization of the amateur sports tournament Copa Telmex, which was included in the Guinness Book of Records as a tournament with the largest number of participants. The following year, 2008, Copa Telmex broke its own record, bringing together even more amateur athletes under one roof. At the same time, together with the Carlos Slim Foundation, the Telmex Foundation allocated $250 million for the development of the sports industry in Mexico.
The Carlos Slim Foundation sponsored the creation of the Zumaya Museum (named after the billionaire's wife, Zumaia Domit, who died in 1999), which displays more than 66 thousand priceless treasures of world culture.
These include priceless religious relics, works by Leonardo da Vinci, Pablo Picasso, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, as well as coins of Spanish governors. The museum houses the world's second largest (and largest private) collection of Rodin sculptures, including the famous Kiss. In addition, it houses the largest collection of works by Salvador Dali in Latin America.
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