Carlos Slim Elu (Spanish Carlos Slim Helu) is a Mexican businessman of Lebanese origin, the son of Maronite emigrants from Lebanon. Billionaire, one of the richest people on the planet.
According to Forbes, from 2010 to 2013 he was the richest person in the world. In the ranking of billionaires in 2016, Carlos Slim Elu was in second place, his financial fortune was estimated at $50 billion, despite the fact that he lost $27 billion in a year. Financial fortune is based on the communications industry, Telefonos de Mexico, Altria Group (formerly director of Philip Morris ), Telcel and America Movil. The main asset of the entrepreneur is the holding company Grupo Carso, which controls a number of large Mexican companies.
Place of Birth. Education. Born January 28, 1940 in Mexico City. The fifth child of a Lebanese refugee and the daughter of a successful Lebanese merchant. His father, Khalil Salim Haddad, wishing to avoid being drafted into the Ottoman army, came to Mexico in 1902, where he changed his name to Julian Slim. Mother's surname is Elu.
Julian had business acumen and went into business in his new location, and later, in 1920, he bought real estate in downtown Mexico City and opened a supermarket. He managed to create a successful trading business. All six of Julian's children began to work in this business, from whom he demanded "loyalty, talent and diligence." In return, children received non-children's pocket money, which they learned to "manage" starting from the first grade of school. Carlos was lucky with his business sense. With the blessing of his father, he began to engage in stock investment, and at the age of seventeen, having mastered the rules of investing, he made his first million.
Carlos, continuing to successfully engage in investment, had time to study at the Faculty of Civil Engineering at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. In his last years, he even taught linear programming and algebra in other streams. After Carlos Slim received his diploma in 1961, he did not work by profession.
Business. Carlos Slim began his entrepreneurial career in retail, focusing on making the cost of mass-market goods affordable for poor Mexican buyers. With funds left over from his father, in the 1980s he began to buy bankrupt companies in the hope of increasing their value in the future. Then he created his holding Group Carso, named after the addition of the names of Carlos and his wife Zumaya.
Now his trading company Carso competes on equal terms with the American giant Wal-Mart.
Then Carlos's business was replenished with the extraction of ore and coal, and today his corporation Frisco is one of the leaders in the national mining and chemical industries.
In 1990, Carlos Slim turned his attention to the telecommunications industry. He acquired Telefonos de Mexico (Telmex), which under his leadership has become a leader in the communications industry and a leading provider of advanced telecommunications services with international prestige.
In 1996, Carso Group was spun off into the Carso Global Telecom holding, whose primary task was to coordinate the organizational, financial and technical means of the Elu Group. Subsequently, the holding included Condumex (manufacturing of telecommunications equipment) and Prodigy (the first Mexican provider and pioneer of commercial web activities).
In 1999, Carlos Slim invested $1.5 billion to secure control of several US firms that operate fiber optic networks and cell phone centers in Florida and Puerto Rico.
In February 2000, on shares with SBC, he became a co-owner of the well-known Internet service provider Network Access Solutions. A joint project with Microsoft allowed the number of Internet users to triple, thanks to which sales of computer equipment also increased.
An engineer by training, during his career Carlos Slim held many important positions, was the first president of the Latin American Committee at the New York Stock Exchange. In 1984, he was one of the initiators of the creation under the government of the association of leading industrialists of the country "Free Enterprise", focused on the partial denationalization of a certain set of state-owned enterprises in order to bring them to the proper level of profitability and subsequent full transfer to private ownership.
He is on the board of directors of the Altira Group (formerly Philip Morris) and also holds one of the management positions at Alcatel.
By investing in politics, Carlos Slim has ensured his business has many years of support from the Mexican government.
Despite the fact that Carlos Slim conducts his business with the help of commercial companies, the overall control of the business is carried out by a group of his close and trusted persons. Having undergone heart surgery in 1997, Carlos Slim Helu gradually retires and passes the initiative to his sons, who form the backbone of the Slim family business.
Carlos never hid that he wants to turn his business into a family and clan business. He left his three sons in the leading positions of the family empire. Elu's eldest son, Carlos, holds the position of chairman of the board of the commercial and industrial group, the telecommunications holding, its main company Telmex and the venture capital company America Telecom, while his brothers, Patrick and Marco Antonio, head, respectively, America Movil and Grupo Financiero Inbursa, the underlying financial family empire structure. And the founder himself controls their activities and puts forward new ideas.
Charity. In addition to business, Carlos Slim Elu is engaged in charitable activities. He established the Carlos Slim Foundation, which finances educational, cultural and medical projects in Mexico. There are about $4 billion in the accounts of charities created by Slim.
It is one of the main sponsors of Nicholas Negroponte's "Laptop for Every Child" program. Slim donated about $100 million to Bill Clinton's charitable foundation, which fights poverty in Latin America.
The Slim family is trying to invest more in the development of the national economy than in social subsidies. They are trying to improve the state of affairs in the educational and medical spheres, social life in Mexico, as well as in the field of employment.
Slim devotes much of his time to the Latin American Development Fund, whose areas of work are infrastructure development, health care and worker education.
In addition, Carlos Slim Helu has invested heavily in the restoration of the historic part of the city of Mexico City. This is a special mission for him, which he adheres to with the guidance of his father.
In March 2011, with the participation of the foundation, the Soumaya Museum (Spanish: Museo Soumaya) was opened, the exposition of which presents the treasures of world culture.
State. As of 2010, Slim is the owner of America Movil, the largest telecommunications company in Latin America, as well as a chain of stores, restaurants and real estate. His wealth is based in the communications industry - Telefonos de Mexico, Altria Group (formerly a director of Philip Morris), Telcel and America Movil.
According to the results of the annual rating of billionaires by Forbes magazine, in 2009 Carlos Slim Elu became the richest man in the world, pushing Bill Gates to second position. The size of his fortune, according to the publication, is $ 53.5 billion. Over the year, it increased by $ 18.5 billion. According to some media reports, the personal capital of a Mexican businessman is equal to 8% of Mexico's gross domestic product. Microsoft founder Gates is worth $53 billion, "only" $500 million less.
Due to the sheer size of his business empire, Slim often jokes that he can't keep track of all the companies he manages.
Life style. At the same time, billionaire Slim leads a modest lifestyle. He continues to live in the house, which the family has occupied for more than a dozen years. The entrepreneur's office in Mexico City is located in a windowless basement. Slim is conservative in his habits, he does not like expensive excesses, for example, he lights cigars from ordinary plastic lighters.
Awards. Carlos Slim Elu has many honorary titles and awards not only from Mexico, but also from the USA and some European countries. He has received an award from the World Education and Development Fund for his assistance in expanding the infrastructure of the world economy.
Family. Carlos Slim was married to Sumaya Domit from 1967 until her death in 1999. Slim has six children: Carlos, Marco Antonio, Patrick, Zumaya, Vanessa and Johanna.
01/27/2021