Carlos Slim (Mexican businessman and Investor) Biography

The richest man in Mexico, Carlos Slim Helu, and his family control América Móvil, the biggest cellular phone company in Latin America. In 1990, Slim and international telecom partners bought a share in Telmex, the only phone provider in Mexico. Currently, Telmex is an América Móvil subsidiary. In addition, he owns stock in Mexican real estate, consumer products, mining, and construction companies. He sold the 17% of The New York Times that he had previously owned. Carlos Slim Helú, a Mexican entrepreneur who became one of the richest individuals in the world, was born in Mexico City on January 28, 1940.

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Carlos Slim Biography

Name:	Carlos Slim Helu
Born:	28 January 1940
Nationality:	Mexican
Age:	82
Net Worth:	$80 billion
Spouse:	Soumaya Domit
Children:	Six (Marco Antonio, Patrick, Soumaya, Vanessa, and Johannaaa)

Carlos Slim Helu is one of the wealthiest businesspeople in the world. He is the biggest shareholder in the New York Times and the owner of Telemax, America Movil, and Grupo Galas. The business tycoon is involved in a variety of industries, including mining, soft drink, real estate, construction, and bottling printing.

Slim hails from a Lebanese-Christian family of immigrants that came to Mexico. Slim Helu inherited his father’s entrepreneurial spirit, having made his fortune in the real estate sector.

Early Life & Education

His father began teaching him about stocks and business at a very young age. He learned how to evaluate, read, and comprehend financial statements from his father. Carlos possessed talent as a student. He attended Mexico’s National Autonomous University.

He graduated with an engineering degree from there. Right there at the institution where he was a student, he began teaching algebra. He was a linear programming and algebra instructor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. His interest in economics and his training in linear programming improved him as a businessman.

He turned his professional life into the tale of a youthful investor turned enormous commercial magnate. The sole telecom provider in Mexico, Telemax, is owned in part by Carlos Slim Helu. In addition, he owns 17% of the New York Times. You must read the sections below to learn how this company journey began.

Carlos Slim Helu Career

Having received numerous years of business training from his father, Carlos began his career by starting his own brokerage. He would invest in small individual businesses, and by the year 1965, he had grown his business enough that he could incorporate other companies or even buy them out entirely.
Although he did invest his money in numerous different kinds of businesses, he mainly focused on mining, construction, and real estate and by 1966, he was estimated to be worth around $40 million.
He continued to invest his funds, and by 1980 he had unified his shares into a parent company called ‘Grupo Galas.’ In the year 1982, the prices of oil dropped immensely, which caused the Mexican economy to suffer greatly.
This led to him expand his shares and investing in international companies; he soon had a 50% share in the ‘The Hershey Company’.
In the year 1990, he continued to extend his control to the telephone communication companies in hopes of soon acquiring the Mexican phone company ‘Telmex’ from the government. After he obtained the company, he soon developed a US version of ‘Telmex’, and he even purchased some stake in the US mobile company ‘Tracfone’.
After going through heart surgery, he began to pass on some of his daily work to his children and backed away from the business life.
In the year 2000’s, Carlos continued to invest in some of the biggest companies in the world, which include the ‘The New York Times Company’, ‘Saks Fifth Avenue’, ‘Telekom Austria’, and ‘Volaris’.
By January 2015, Carlos had become ‘The New York Times Company’s’ largest individual shareholder.
In 2020, Carlos Slim Helu’s net worth is $56 billion, and he is one of the richest people of all time.

Carlos Slim Helu Philanthropic Works

He has founded three non-profit foundations, namely, Fundacion Carlos Slim Helu, Fundacion Telmex and Fundacion del Centro Historico de la Ciudad de Mexico A.C. These foundations concentrate on the Mexico City and look after education, arts, and healthcare, one for downtown restoration and one for sports.

Entrepreneurial Achievements

Carlos came from a prosperous immigrant business family. After moving to Mexico in 1902, his father, Khalil Salim Haddad Aglamaz, changed his name to Julián Slim Haddad. They were among the Christians from Lebanon who immigrated to Mexico in the early 1900s.

In 1911, his father opened a dry goods store. In ten years, the company had grown sufficiently to repay $100,000. Carlos Slim Helu acquired it from his father when he passed away at the age of 13. He began working for his father’s business.

He worked in Mexico City for a while as a stock trader. Carlos Slim Helu was 25 years old and had a $3.6 million net worth in current currency. It was then that he opened Inversora Bursátil, his own stock brokerage. His quest to become the richest Hispanic in the world began here.

Grupo Galas

Carlos Slim Helu later began to dabble in a wide variety of enterprises spanning several industries in the 1970s. At first, he concentrated on a variety of businesses, including the building, soft drink, real estate, bottling printing, and mining sectors.

Subsequently, he broadened his empire by venturing into other industries such as aluminum, aviation, chemicals, tobacco, paper, and packaging, cement, copper and mineral extraction, tires, retail, and tobacco. Carlos’s next move was to form Group Galas, which would serve as the parent company for the conglomerate companies he had successfully entered.

Nacobre, Química Fluor & More

He purchased and kept several iconic companies in Mexico in 1982 when they were going through financial difficulties in order to maintain cash flow. Before selling these businesses for a bigger profit, he clung onto them. Because of the business conglomerate structure, he was able to buy and hold onto various stakes.
Carlos kept buying things. During this period, he became the owner of the chain of retail food stores and gift shops Sanborn Hermanos. Furthermore, Carlos bought 50% of The Hershey Company and 40% of British American Tobacco. For Carlos Slim Helu, the 1980s economic downturn was a major source of riches, and he made the most of it. Química Fluor and Nacobre, a manufacturer of copper, were acquired by Carlos in 1988.

Telemax

Right now, Carlos Slim Helu is the owner of Mexico’s sole telecom business. When the Mexican government started privatization the telecom industry during the 1990s, Carlos viewed it as a good opportunity and purchased Teléfonos de México or Telemax.

Carlos Slim Helu’s corporate holding company, Grupo Carso, acquired this well-known telecom sector alongside French and American partners. Telemax is currently a part of América Móvil. The organization wants to provide clients all throughout the nation with the greatest communication solution.

New York Times

Carlos Slim Helu’s Grupo Galas is the umbrella corporation for a wide variety of industries. His wealth represents 6% of Mexico’s GDP. Even more startling is the fact that, as of 2016, Carlos is the only individual on the planet to have acquired and retained a sizable 17% share in The New York Times, making him the company’s biggest shareholder.

Charity

He does not follow other billionaires like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet when it comes to philanthropy. Both of them, along with Mark Zukerberg, have signed the Giving Pledge. By making this commitment, the business owners give away more than half of their fortune to charitable causes. But according to reports, Carlos Slim Helu gave $4 billion to charities as of 2011. Forbes also named him the most giving philanthropist outside of America in the globe.

Personal Life

Soumaya Domit, his wife of 24 years, was just 16 when they first met. In 1967, two years later, Carlos wed her. Six children were born to Carlos and Soumaya: Marco Antonio, Patrick, Soumaya, Vanessa, and Johanna. Soumaya was Carlos’ wife, and they stayed wed until her passing in 1999.

The business magnate, who was widowed, had no desire to remarry. Three of his sons received large shares of his firm, which they actively managed and oversaw on a daily basis.

Timeline

1965 – Acquires a bottling company, Jarritos del Sur, and incorporates a stock brokerage, Inversora Bursatil. Also establishes real estate, construction and mining companies.
January 1966 – Incorporates his real estate company, Inmobiliaria Carso.
1970s-1980s – Expands and diversifies his holdings in real estate, industry and commercial enterprises.
1980 – Slim combines all of his business interests into Grupo Galas, known today as Grupo Carso.
1982 – During Mexico’s financial crisis, Grupo Carso acquires the controlling interest in dozens of companies.
1990 – Grupo Carso goes public and its companies merge. Grupo Carso acquires Telmex, the newly denationalized telecommunications monopoly, in a venture with Southwestern Bell, France Telecom and several Mexican investors. Carso Global Telecom is created as Telmex’s holding company. Slim also acquires mobile telecom company Radiomovil Dipsa, a subsidiary of Telmex, and renames it Telcel.
1994 – Founds Museo Soumaya, a non-profit art museum named after his wife.
March 14, 1994 – Slim’s cousin, financier Harp Helu, is kidnapped. The billionaire is released in June after the family agrees to pay an undisclosed amount, which may have been an almost $30 million ransom.
1995 – Founds the Telmex Foundation.
1996 – Grupo Carso splits into Carso Global Telecom, Grupo Carso and Invercorporacion.
1997 – Purchases Mexico’s arm of Sears Roebuck. Telmex USA begins operation.
1997 – Slim undergoes successful open-heart surgery. Begins handing over day-to-day operations of his businesses to his children.
2000 – Acquires the ailing CompUSA for nearly $800 million.
2005 – After acquiring a 13% stake in MCI, Slim sells off stake to Verizon Communications Corp. for $1.1 billion.
March 2007 – Slim pledges $6 billion to his charitable foundations.
May 2007 – Founds the Carlos Slim Health Institute, a non-profit that aims to make health care affordable and accessible in Latin America, through his Carlos Slim Foundation.
December 2007 – Unable to turn CompUSA around, Slim sells it to a restructuring firm. The retailer shuts down most of its stores and its remaining assets are sold off.
2008-2009 – Buys a nearly 7% stake in the New York Times, and invests $250 million into the company via a six-year lending agreement.
2011 – Opens a new Museo Soumaya facility in Mexico City. The museum is designed by Slim’s son-in-law, architect Fernando Romero.
July 2014 – While attending a business conference, Slim proposes the idea of an 11-hour per day, 33-hour work week. He says the three-day work week would improve quality of life.
January 14, 2015 – Slim exercises warrants to acquire 16 million more shares of the New York Times, making him the company’s largest individual shareholder, with an almost 17% stake.
June 2015 – Slim’s TV production studio, Ora TV, drops a partnership on a project with US President Donald Trump after Trump says in his presidential campaign launch that some Mexicans crossing the border into the United States are “rapists.”
January 18, 2017 – Slim announces plans to launch Nuestra Vision, a television channel tailored to Mexicans living in the United States.
January 27, 2017 – Slim offers to help Mexico negotiate with Trump after seeing the national response Mexico has had in facing the new US government. The billionaire praises Trump’s negotiation skills and says the US president wants to “transform the United States” and there will to be “positive” changes for those in Mexico.
October 2018 – Mexican President-elect Andrés Manuel says that he will halt construction of the partially built new Mexico City airport. Slim is a top investor in the $13 billion project, which was rejected in a referendum.
April 30, 2020 – Slim wins a contract to build a portion of the government’s Maya Train, an ambitious infrastructure project that will connect cities in five southeastern states.
January 2021 – Slim is briefly hospitalized after testing positive for Covid-19.
June 30, 2021 – According to Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Slim will pay for all the costs needed to rebuild Mexico City’s subway overpass-stretch, which left 26 dead after it collapsed in May.
September 2022 – While speaking at a Fundación Telmex Telcel scholarship event in Mexico, talks about ways to combat unemployment, especially among young people. His suggestions include establishing a three-day work week and increasing the retirement age to 75.