YAAAAAAAAAAAATZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZIIII!!!!!!!!!!!http://www.javno.com/en/economy/clanak.php?id=62786Carlos Slim Helu is currently the richest man on earth with 67.8 billion dollars on his account. Slim has most profit from his Mexican telecommunications industry gathering Telmex, Telcel and America Movil. The share of his Telmex company on the Mexican land line telephony reaches 90 percent and Telcel covers 80 percent of mobile telephony, while America Movil has more than 100 million clients across Latin America.
Thanks to the increase in value of Telmex’s shares, Slim’s wealth grew to 67.8 billion dollars, making him the richest man on earth. He thus overtook computer genius and Microsoft founder Bill Gates who is worth 59.2 billion dollars.
Carlos Slim was born in Mexico City on January 28, 1940.
His father Julian Slim Haddad Aglamaz emigrated from Lebanon to Mexico City and in 1902 opened a retail store. In 1911 he began purchasing real-estate in the city’s centre. Julian had six children, with Carlos being the youngest.
At 26 Carlos Slim already owned 400,000 dollars. He ventured into the business world with ‘only’ a construction engineer diploma and a large amount of money he had inherited from his parents. Slim bought restaurants and companies that had been in dire straits and turned them into lucrative companies. His business strategy is founded on the purchase of such companies because they are cheap, Guardian writes.
By the 1990’s Slim was not part of the group of the richest Mexicans. He entered that group only after purchasing Telmex in which he played a major role. Slim headed a group of investors including France Telecom and Southwestern Bell Corporation in buying Telmex in 1991 that had been owned by the state of Mexico at the time when Carlos Salinas, known for corruption, had been president.
Today Telmex has 90 percent of subscribers in land-line telephony and Slim’s mobile operator Telcel has almost 80 percent of clients in Mexico. The telephone industry is the core of Slim’s success and development. In the past five years his mobile telephone company America Movil purchased the rest of mobile operators across Latin America, becoming the largest mobile service provider in the region with more than 100 million subscribers.
Many had criticised Slim for having purchased Telmex illegally, but nothing had ever been proven.
Although most of his capital comes from the telecommunications industry, Slim also owns five insurance companies, a Mexican retail chain, a mining company, the Inbursa bank, the Cigatam tobacco factory, the Volaris airline company and the Progidy Internet provider. All together, Slim’s companies have a value of half of the Mexican stock market.
Lately the Telmex Foundation advertised many of Slim’s humanitarian actions on a daily basis in Mexico’s largest dailies. Slim also donated 100 million dollars to the Clinton Foundation, but when this is compared to donations by Gates and Buffet as a percentage of their total capital, these Slim’s donations are negligible, Business Week reports.
But, Slim does not plan to retire yet as Bill Gates had done who is planning to dedicate himself to humanitarian work. Although he is under pressure that he should participate more in humanitarian actions, Slim dedicated himself to starting new jobs in Latin America because he believes that is the right thing to do
