Slim elu carlos state. Carlos Slim's success story

Planets of Bill Gates, founder and ideological inspirer of Microsoft. Carlos Slim became the first Mexican who managed to conquer the pyramidal top of billionaires. This has become a sensation for the world's business, given the fact that over the past sixteen years this has been done by a person without US citizenship.

How to be born a billionaire?

On January 28, 1940, the future Mexican businessman and philanthropist Carlos Slim Helu was born in the family of a Mexican realtor of Arab origin Julian Slim Haddad. This was the fifth child of Julian Slim Haddad and Linda Ellu Atta. The business acumen of his father Carlos, 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 outlets in the business part of the capital of the Latin American state. Julian Slim passed on his managerial skills to his children, of whom he had six.

First investment lessons

The success story of Carlos Slim begins at the age of seventeen. At that time, a young man, having the flair of a stock investor, makes his first million. Carlos Slim recalls his first lessons in profitable investing as follows: “My father forced each of us, his children, to keep a special notebook of income and expenses. Coming from school, we wrote down all our expenses for the day in it. Father carefully reviewed the records and gave an assessment to each of us. These evening gatherings with the whole family at 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. A young man gets his first investment experience at the age of twelve. With pocket money saved, which his father gave him daily, at the age of twelve, Carlos Slim buys 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 in a profitable business, while still studying at the National Autonomous University of Mexico at the Faculty of Civil Engineering. The outstanding abilities of the student were appreciated by the university management. 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 university students.

However, having received a diploma of higher education from the National Autonomous University of Mexico in 1961, Carlos Slim did not work in the engineering specialty received at the university, he was attracted by investments.

The birth of a financial empire

Carlos Slim starts his career as a stockbroker. Working 14 hours a day, in 1965 he manages to make a profit from private investments of 400 thousand dollars. This inspires Carlos to bigger projects. This is how the brokerage company "Inversora Bursátil" appears, which becomes the foundation for creating a large family business.

In 1966, the future billionaire in the first letters of the name of Slim Ellu and his wife Sumai Domit Gemayel organizes 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. In the late 60s, the financial condition of Carlos Slim reaches a little over 50 million dollars.

Carlos Slim: biography of the 70s

The financial well-being of Carlos Slim, thanks to competent investment, is growing every year. By 1972, he acquired seven more enterprises, mainly these were production facilities for the manufacture of construction equipment. In 1976, Slim becomes 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 company Galas de Mexico belonged to him. The focus of Carlos Slim's growing business in the following years was:

production of non-ferrous metals;
airlines;
industrial and civil construction;
chemical and pulp and paper industry;
insurance investment.

Growth of financial power

In 1982, the Mexican economy experienced a financial crisis. Banking activity suffered a collapse, some went bankrupt, others were looking for sources of financing. A foreign investor turned away from the Latin American state, many commercial projects had to be closed, companies suffered multimillion-dollar losses.

However, Carlos' keen investment eye kept a close eye on companies that could turn a profit later on. Buying assets at low prices, Slim ended up with a fairly solid income thanks to successful reinvestment.

In 1985, at the peak 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.

The owner of telecommunications

In the early 90s, Carlos Slim significantly increases 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 already from a company known only in Latin America, it develops into a global brand. The further chronology of events is also impressive:

Ahead - America!

In 1999, Carlos Slim's gaze turns to the United States of America. Expanding his business interests outside of Latin America, the billionaire is targeting foreign investment from his northern neighbor. Soon Carlos Slim achieves some success and becomes a prominent figure in the American business scene.

In 2002, the famous Forbes magazine included him in the list of billionaires, estimating the total fortune of Carlos Slim at 11 billion dollars. Since 2003, he has managed to buy large stakes in a number of large US retailers. In 2006, behind only Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, Carlos Slim comes in third place with a net worth of $30 billion.

A year later, Carlos becomes the richest man on earth. Today, his fortune is estimated at 81.5 billion dollars, which allows him to hold the world championship among the world's moneybags.

Personal life

The billionaire has been happily married for 32 years. His only love was Sumai Domit Gemayel, a Lebanese-born girl and cousin of the former President of Lebanon. My wife has been involved in charity all her life. The main idea of her life was the creation of a legal basis for organ donation, a project funded by Carlos Slim. The family meant a lot to the Mexican magnate.

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 coronary vessels. The main thing that Sumai Domit Gemayel and Carlos Slim managed to do in this life are children: Carlos, Marco Antonio, Patrick, Sumaya, Vanessa and Johanna.

Slim's fortune spawned a business empire in the family. Today, company shares are acquired not only on behalf of Carlos Slim, but also from his children. His three eldest sons hold key positions in the companies of the Carso group.

There are no computers in Carlos Slim's office. He keeps all his financial data on paper. The business empire of the Mexican tycoon 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 house of the Mexican billionaire is located in Lomas de Chapultepec, one of the most prestigious areas of modern Mexico City. A modest dwelling, built forty years ago, is located near the place where Carlos spent his childhood and youth.

In addition, in different 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 on 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.

The main real estate of Carlos is located in the United States of America. In May 2014, K. Slim presented to the world community his own Inbursa aquarium, the largest in Latin America.

Charity

Slim has always been ironic about philanthropy, criticizing Warren Buffett and Bill Gates for their annual 5% donations to various charities.

He said: "I am not God and not Santa Claus, to help the poor, to 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: "Finally, I realized that after death I will not be able to take my billions with me."

Today, the Carlos Slim Foundation has $4 billion in its account. The Slim Foundation donated $100 million to the nationwide Laptop for a Kid program. The charitable idea is to provide every student in Mexico with a personal computer. Carlos also responded to the idea of US President Bill Clinton to fight poverty in Latin America.

Merit recognition

The long entrepreneurial activity of Carlos Slim did not go unnoticed:

1985 Entrepreneurial Medal of Honor from the Mexican Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
1991 "Gold Patron" from the American Academy of Achievement.
1998 Order of Leopold II from the Belgian government.
2003-2004 Badge "Best General Manager" from the Latin trade magazine.
2008 National Order of the Cedar from the Lebanese government.
2011. The Spanish Society of America honors Carlos Slim with the Soroll Medal for his contributions to the arts and culture.
year 2012. "Honorary Doctor" from the George Washington University (USA).

Tips from a tycoon

The whole world knows the Mexican billionaire as the author of unique aphorisms and sayings. Carlos Slim quotes:

Luck in personal life makes a person stronger.
Many people change the world for the better for their children, and I, on the contrary, change my children for the better so that they change the world.
Wealth is a blooming garden where it is necessary to share not 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 Elu along with Americans Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, he is one of the three richest people in the world. At the same time, Slim has recently shown the fastest growth rates.

According to Forbes, in 2010 he has the first largest fortune. The richest man in Latin America. The financial condition is based on the communications industry, Teléfonos de México, Altria Group (formerly a director of Philip Morris), Telcel and América Móvil. The main asset of the entrepreneur is the holding company Grupo Carso, which controls a number of large Mexican companies.

The fortune of the Mexican businessman is estimated at more than 67.8 billion dollars, which is equal to 8% of the gross domestic product of Mexico. The site estimated Gates' fortune at $59.2 billion. The 70-year-old Slim managed to dislodge Gates from the top spot in the rankings thanks to a 27% increase in the share price of America Movil from March to June 2007 - the Mexican tycoon owns a 33% stake in this largest mobile operator in the Latin American region.

Carlos Slim became the first Mexican in the history of the rating to rise to the top of the pyramid of billionaires. Also, for the first time in 16 years, a non-US citizen did so. His fortune is estimated by experts at 53.5 billion dollars. During the year it increased by 18.5 billion.

Companies controlled by him de facto monopolists in the telecommunications sector of Mexico And.

Patrick, the youngest son of Carlos Slim Elu, remembers well that his father was not always a super wealthy man. This refers to the 1980s, when Mexico was in a deep financial crisis. Carlos periodically called his three teenage sons together for economics classes. As a rule, everyone sat at home in the living room around the head of the family. The lessons were practical, they looked at examples of how Mexican insurance companies were more successful than American ones, or, conversely, how much Mexican industrial manufacturers were inferior to their European competitors. For Mr. Slim, who once taught mathematics, these classes meant much more than just academic lessons. He wanted to teach his sons the same things he learned from his father, a Lebanese immigrant, Julian Slim, who came to Mexico in 1902 to avoid being drafted into the regular army of the Ottoman Empire. Establishing his own real estate business in Mexico City, Slim Senior, after the Mexican Revolution of 1920, purchased real estate in the downtown area and opened a supermarket.

Julian Slim liked to say that no matter what, You can't discount a big country like Mexico. Carlos Slim invested heavily in the family business. He inherited an outstanding ability to calculate the situation from his father. Initially, after spending $55 million to develop his own insurance company, Carlos invested heavily in the Sanborns retail chain and the hotel business. These investments became the basis Slim's huge business empire, worth $150 billion today. Mexican billionaire Slim's family business earned 5% of Mexico's gross domestic product in 2006. Fat and constantly smoking a cigar Carlos Slim can be compared with the famous American financier John Morgan (John Morgan). But given the presence of his interests in various spheres of the world economy, he looks more like a billionaire Rockefeller(John D. Rockefeller), who excelled in doing business in an internationally competitive environment.

Mr Slim is known for his frugality . During business meetings, he defiantly wears an old cheap watch with a built-in calculator. A few years ago, he wrote the so-called corporate code for employees of the manufacturing conglomerate Grupo Carso. One of his rules says: "Avoid excesses even in the easiest times of your life, for this will provide you with stability during the greatest difficulties." The average Mexican constantly encounters parts of Mr. Slim's business empire, such as the Telefonos de Mexico (TelMex) corporation that controls 92% of the nation's wireline telecommunications network. And his own company, America Movil, controls 70% of the assets in the mobile communications segment in Mexico.

George W. Grayson, an American professor of public administration, calls Mexico Slimland, trying to show how deeply rooted the Slim family business is in the daily life of this country. Many Mexican citizens hoped that the beginning of the privatization process in the 1990s would lead to a competitive environment and sharp price cuts. However, according to Professor Grayson, Carlos Slim is one of those "fat cats" who hinder the development of the Mexican economy, leading monopoly or oligopoly. The professor believes that the national economy of Mexico is very efficient, but because of such monopolists as Slim, the ability to compete in the country is reduced to zero. In the early 1960s, Carlos, after graduating in engineering from the National University of Mexico City, became a stockbroker in the capital and began acquiring industrial companies on the stock exchange. Over time, he formed his own financial holding Grupo Carso. In 1982, there was an economic crisis in Mexico. The country was declared a default due to non-payment of external debt.

Investors were leaving Mexico City, and Carlos Slim got the opportunity buy companies for nothing. Gradually, the Mexican economy recovered, and by the end of the 1980s, Slim became one of the most successful businessmen in the country. When the Mexican government put up for sale the state telecommunications company Telefonos de Mexico, Carlos Slim did his best to become its co-owner. Together with the American corporation SBC (now AT&T) and France Telecom, Mr. Slim acquired a 20% stake in Telefonos de Mexico for $2 billion. In addition, Slim and the company received a monopoly on the management of state telecommunications for 7 years.

Another component of Carlos Slim's success was the sponsorship of the PRI political party, led by former Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari. The well-known Latin American publicist Andres Oppenheimer, in his book on Mexican politics, Curbing Chaos, describes a party that took place in 1993, at which representatives of Salinas turned to 30 influential businessmen of the country for help. Among them was Carlos Slim, who offered to all those present to help the pro-presidential party in private, so as not to provoke a public scandal. According to unverified data, each of the businessmen donated about $25 million on average. By investing in politics, Carlos Slim secured his business many years of support from the Mexican government. Thanks to this, Slim's financial empire effectively monopolized the country's telecommunications industry for more than 15 years. Over time, Mr. Slim began to look for ways to expand his business outside of Mexico. As Randall Stephenson, an AT&T executive who worked in Mexico from 1992-1996, recalls, Carlos Slim was constantly nurturing the idea of conquering the Latin American mobile telecommunications market, so he began to buy up regional cellular operators. In 2000, he skillfully took advantage of the financial crisis in the Internet market to acquire a number of bankrupt regional telephone operators, including the Latin American subsidiary of AT&T. This ultimately gave it a dominant position in the provision of telecommunications services in Latin America. Despite the fact that Carlos Slim conducts his business with the help of numerous 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, 67-year-old Carlos Slim Elu is gradually retiring and passing the initiative to his sons, who form the backbone of the Slim family business.

Coming to the fore three of his sons- Carlos Jr., Marco Antonio and Patrick, who are actively involved in the development of various areas of the family business. Although Carlos Slim Elu has not yet officially named his successor, at the moment his eldest son, also Carlos Slim, is actually the second person in the Slim family hierarchy. It is he who heads the financial conglomerate Grupo Carso and, according to close friends, has the most pronounced charisma among the three brothers. It should be noted that the sons of Carlos Slim Sr. are not like the children of other famous oligarchs. They did not go to Europe to finish some elite special school there and get a foreign diploma. The Slim brothers studied economics in their home country of Mexico City and gained hands-on experience in the family business.

Carlos Jr., starting at the age of 14, worked in his father's banking institutions. At one time, he was engaged in the development of the Sanborns shopping center in downtown Mexico City, which later became the most prestigious store in the capital selling books and musical products. In 1998, Carlos Jr. headed the financial holding Grupo Carso. If Carlos Jr. became the main specialist in the field of service and work with corporate clients, then Marco Antonio positions himself only as a financier. His business career began in 1992 with the Inbursa financial group, part of Grupo Carso. Becoming at the age of 24 years at the head of this financial institution, Marco Antonio leads it to this day. Patrick, the youngest son of Carlos Slim Elu, began working for his father's America Movil after attending university. Since 2004, when he was elected chairman of the board, the value of the company's shares has tripled. Thus, under Patrick's leadership, America Movil became the most profitable component of Carlos Slim's business empire.

The Slim family has a number of well-established traditions, one of which is the collective vacation on the west coast of Mexico. In the summer, all family members, including Mr. Slim's little grandchildren, get together to spend a few weeks somewhere on the beach of the Gulf of California. According to Carlos Jr., love for the family hearth was instilled in him and his brothers from early childhood. Father and mother taught them to enjoy life and realize the responsibility of each to the family. The issue of responsibility has always been at the core of the Slim family philosophy.

On accounts charities, created by Mr. Slim, is about $ 4 billion. Over the next few years, these accounts will receive another $6 billion. Carlos Slim has invested $500 million in education and social development in Mexico. It is one of the main sponsors of Nicholas Negroponte's "Laptop for Every Child" program. Recently, Mr. Slim transferred about $100 million to the Bill Clinton charitable foundation, which fights poverty in Latin America. In addition, he invested heavily in the restoration of the historic part of the city of Mexico City. Carlos Slim Elu has his own view on the problem of providing social assistance. The Slim family is trying to invest more in the development of the national economy than in social subsidies. According to Marco Antonio, the best way to help people is to give them the opportunity to work, not just give them money. The Slims 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. Carlos Slim Elu was awarded the World Education and Development Fund for his assistance in expanding the infrastructure of the world economy.

At one of the last solemn receptions in New York, Mr. Slim, in the presence of family members, said: "Many people want to change the world for the better for their children. I'm trying to change my children for the better so that they serve the world".

Carlos Slim Elu is a Mexican billionaire businessman, one of the richest people on the planet. Interestingly, it was he who, for the first time in sixteen years, managed to overtake the Americans in the global ranking of billionaires, taking a 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 much, only 500 million dollars. However, this was enough for Carlos Slim Elu to become the richest man on the planet. His fortune is estimated at approximately 53.5 billion dollars. The personal capital of this businessman, 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 Elu was born in Mexico City on January 28, 1940. He was the fifth child 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 a business acumen. At the new place, he took up the real estate business. Then, in 1920, Julian bought real estate in downtown Mexico City and opened a supermarket there. This man managed to establish a successful trading business in Mexico City, in which all six of his children began to work. From them he demanded diligence, talent and devotion. In return, 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 investment, 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 managed at the same time to study at the university at the Faculty of Civil Engineering. Carlos Slim taught algebra and linear programming in other courses in his last years. In 1961, he received a diploma, but did not begin to work in his profession.

Personal life

In 1966, Carlos married Somaya Domit Germayel. This girl was also of Lebanese origin. She was the cousin of Gemayel, the Lebanese president. The couple lived happily married for 32 years, until Somaya's death in 1999. Today, Slim is considered, despite the extra pounds, double chin and old age, an enviable groom. However, he is indifferent to beauties, and glamorous fame does not appeal to him.

Carlos' strategy

Having accumulated a decent amount of capital, he directed it to the insurance business, as well as to the purchase of hotels and Sanborns stores. Carlos Slim's focus in retail was to bring down the cost of consumer goods by making them available to the poor in Mexico. This became the basis of his business, his growing capitalization. Buy cheap, then upgrade and either sell high or join the growing family empire - this is the constant strategy of the tycoon from Mexico.

Founding of the famous holding

The country defaulted in 1982 due to the inability to pay its external debt. A large-scale economic crisis occurred in Mexico. For a few centimes, investors got rid of their solid assets accumulated. The panic situation was taken advantage of by Carlos Slim, whose biography is the topic of our article. He used the money left from his father and bought many promising companies for next to nothing. It was then that the famous investment holding Carso Group was founded. The 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 extraction of coal and ore. Frisco Corporation, which is still part of the Group Carso syndicate, has become a leader in the country's mining industry, as well as the chemical industry.

By the end of the 1980s, the expansion of companies owned by Carlos into various sectors of the market had reached such a scale that every second resident of the country, as well as every second enterprise, in one way or another faced daily at least one of the many structures owned by this millionaire, being consumers the goods and services they produce.

Political assets

Carlos Slim, whose fortune was already very large at that time, in addition to economic assets, also acquired political ones. Informally friendly nature are his contacts with high-ranking officials of Mexico. Among them, the most valuable was the friendship with Carlos Salinas de Gortari, the president of this country in 1988-1994. Slim's detractors argue that the personal sympathies of the Mexican president allegedly played in favor of the millionaire when the question arose of the privatization of the state telecommunications company Telmex, which was at that time, and also for many years later, a monopolist in the Mexican communications market.

Acquisition of Telmex

De Gortari, who pursued a tough policy of privatizing state-owned enterprises and deregulating the economy, decided to put a number of companies up for auction, including Telmex. A group of investors led by Carlos Slim Helu won the tender. Slim paid for the block of shares he received for several years with money from the proceeds that the acquired company received. Carlos, by investing in politics, ensured his business was backed by the Mexican government for years to come.

The shocking 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 trials. The process ended in nothing, but all this time the president had to explain himself to the public and the government.

Work at Telmex

Meanwhile, Carlos Slim Helu continued to build a financial empire. His biography in 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: rebuild the technical base, streamline corporate governance, and create a range of services. These efforts were not in vain - the reconstruction, carried out in five years, allowed the company in 1995 to bypass the national catastrophe that devalued the Mexican peso. Telmex, therefore, met the new development of the Mexican industry not as a decrepit company with government protection, but as the leader of the country's economy and as the main provider of telecommunications services.

Telmex enjoyed a monopoly in the Mexican market throughout the 1990s. The company even now occupies approximately 80-90 percent of the country's fixed-line communication market, as well as about 70% of the mobile one.

New companies within the holding and new cooperation

The Group Carso syndicate in 1996 was spun off into a holding called Carso Global Telecom. The main task was to coordinate the technical, organizational and financial means of the Elu group. Subsequently, this holding included the company Condumex, 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 US firms that operate cell phone centers and fiber optic networks in Puerto Rico and Florida.

On equity with SBC in February 2000, he became a co-owner of Network Access Solutions, a well-known Internet service provider. Cooperation with Microsoft made it possible to increase the number of Internet users by 3 times, 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 Elu received a modern laptop as a gift from his sons. Home made the right choice. Perhaps it was this laptop that changed Slim's attitude towards the telecommunications segment, which was the reason for working in this particular direction.

The conquest of the Latin American market

Carlos eventually began to look for opportunities to expand the business outside of his country. He sought to conquer the Latin American market. To do this, Slim began to buy up regional telecom operators. In 2000, he acquired a number of telephone operators that went 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 state apparatus, while 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, in the first ten years, the firm modernized networks and quadrupled the number of subscribers. From the late 1990s and over the next ten years, 30 million low-income Mexicans gained access to mobile phones.

Carlos Slim Elu is a Mexican businessman, billionaire, who has been holding the title of the richest man in the world for two years now. It is also noteworthy that Carlos Slim, the first who over the past 16 years managed to push the Americans from the top position in the global ranking of billionaires. According to Forbes magazine, in 2010, as a result of the growth in the market value of his assets, Carlos Slim surpassed Bill Gates - not by much, by $ 500 million, but that was enough to become the richest person on Earth with a capital of $ 53.5 billion. . According to some media reports, the personal capital of a Mexican businessman is equal to 8% of the gross domestic product of Mexico.

In his homeland, the gray-bearded Carlos Slim has long become a fantastic figure, which is perceived by most fellow citizens as a character in a modern fairy tale with a plot in which a poor native of a Lebanese immigrant family turns into an almighty autocrat with countless treasures.

Success Story, Biography of Carlos Slim

The success story of Carlos Slim is very interesting and informative. Carlos Slim Elu was born on January 28, 1940 in Mexico City. He was the fifth child of a Lebanese refugee and the daughter of a successful Lebanese merchant. His father, Julian Slim, came to Mexico in 1902 (the family decided to save young Julian from forced service in the Ottoman army).

Julian had business acumen and went into the real estate 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, the teenager began to engage in stock investment, and at the age of seventeen, having mastered investment rules 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.

Having amassed considerable capital, he invested it in the insurance business, the purchase of hotels and the Sanborns chain of stores (in retail, he emphasized that the cost of mass-market goods was affordable for poor Mexican buyers). This became the basis for the growing capitalization of his business. Buy cheap, upgrade, then either sell expensive or join the family empire - this is the unchanging strategy of the Mexican tycoon.

In 1982, Mexico defaulted due to the inability to pay its foreign debt. A large-scale economic crisis occurred in the country, investors got rid of solid assets for a few centimes. Carlos Slim took advantage of the panic situation and the money left from his father. As a result, he managed to buy up many promising companies for next to nothing. Then the famous investment holding Carso Group was founded, named after the first syllables of the name of Carlos and his wife Soumai.

The next step was mining ore and coal, and to this day, part of his diversified syndicate Group Carso, Frisco Corporation has become the leader of the national mining industry, as well as the chemical industry.

By the end of the 1980s, the expansion of the various companies that make up Group Carso into various sectors of the Mexican market reached such a scale that every second Mexican resident and every second enterprise encountered at least one of the structures of this syndicate every day, being a consumer its goods and services.

Telecommunications business, acquisition of Telmex

In addition to economic assets, Slim also acquired political ones (his contacts with high-ranking representatives of the Mexican authorities are of an informal friendly nature), among them friendship with Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari in 1988–94 became especially valuable. According to Slim's detractors, the president's personal sympathies played in his favor when the question arose of privatizing Telmex (Telefonos de Mexico), the state-owned telecommunications company, then (and for a long time after) a monopolist in the domestic telecommunications market.

In 1990, de Gortari, who pursued a hard policy of deregulating the economy and privatizing state-owned enterprises, decided to put up for auction a number of companies, in particular Telmex. The tender was won by a group of investors led by Carlos Slim. For the received block of shares, Slim paid off over the next few years with money from the company's revenue. By investing in politics, Carlos Slim provided his business with many years of support from the Mexican government (it is not known whether the authors of Russian loans-for-shares auctions were inspired by this example five years later, but there is a certain similarity).

The shocking fact caused massive outrage - an uproar in the press and government circles - and led to a series of mass trials. Despite the fact that this whole process ended in nothing, the president, right up to his departure from office (four years later), had to explain himself to the government and the public. But, apparently, neither of these two regretted the deal, the details of which, again, were known only to two.

And, Carlos Slim Elu, not paying much attention to this small blow to his reputation, continued to build his own financial empire. It took him five years to put the company in order: streamline corporate governance, rebuild the technical base and create a range of services and build a partnership structure. These efforts were not in vain - the reconstruction carried out in five years allowed the company to avoid the nationwide financial disaster of 1995, which depreciated the Mexican peso and ruined the Mexico City Commodity Exchange, without a fatal outcome. Thus, Telmex met a new round in the development of Mexico's industry, not as a decrepit enterprise with government protection, but as the leader of the national economy and the leading provider of telecommunications services in the country. The annual turnover of the concern by that time exceeded 10 billion dollars, and the net profit was about 1 billion.

Throughout the 1990s, Telmex enjoyed an absolute monopoly in Mexico's telephony market, and even now the company has between 80 and 90% of the national fixed-line market and approximately 70% of the mobile market.

In 1996, Group Carso 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 control several US firms operating 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 provider Network Access Solutions. A joint project with Microsoft tripled the number of Internet users, which led to an increase in the sale of computer equipment.

It should be noted that Carlos was always terrified of computer technology and the IT industry, but everything changed one Christmas, for which his sons gave him a modern laptop. Perhaps this is what changed Carlos' attitude to the telecommunications market segment and served as a key reason for working in this direction.

Over time, Mr. Slim began to look for ways to expand his business outside of Mexico. As Randall Stephenson, an AT&T executive who worked in Mexico from 1992-1996, recalls, Carlos Slim was constantly hatching the idea of conquering the Latin American mobile telecommunications market, so he began to buy up regional mobile operators. In 2000, he skillfully took advantage of the financial crisis in the Internet companies market, acquired a number of bankrupt regional telephone operators, including the Latin American subsidiary of AT&T. This ultimately gave it a dominant position in the provision of telecommunications services in Latin America.

Carlos Slim Elu is a mirror of Mexican evolution, he is as organic in the modern conditions of his country as Bill Gates is in the USA. Not a very transparent entrepreneur, cleverly using connections in the state apparatus, far from the ideals of an open market and free competition. On the other hand, he is obviously a talented person, who, in addition to acquisitiveness, is aimed at creation. After all, Telmex wasn't just collecting tribute from the monopolist: in its first ten years under Slim's leadership, the company modernized its networks and quadrupled its subscriber base. Over the next 10 years, since the late 90s, 30 million low-income Mexicans have gained access to mobile communications: America Movil, a mobile operator also owned by Slim, credited potential subscribers to buy a phone and made tariffs more or less affordable.

Why is Carlos Slim criticized?

Although Slim himself never tires of repeating that he employs tens of thousands of people (and this is true: his companies employ more than 200 thousand people), critics draw attention to something else - the monopoly position of these companies inflates prices in the domestic market and hinders the growth of small firms. And this means lost GDP and the loss of many of those same jobs.

Not a very transparent entrepreneur, cleverly using connections in the state apparatus, Carlos Slim is far from the ideals of an open market and free competition.

George Grayson, an American professor of public administration, calls Mexico Slimland, trying to show how deeply rooted the Slim family business is in the daily life of this country. Many Mexican citizens hoped that the beginning of the privatization process in the 1990s would lead to a competitive environment and sharp price cuts. However, according to Professor Grayson, Carlos Slim is one of those "fat cats" who hinder the development of the Mexican economy by leading monopolies or oligopolies.

The professor believes that the national economy of Mexico is very efficient, but because of such monopolists as Slim, the ability to compete in the country is reduced to zero.

Critics of Carlos Slim call his belated and modest charity a fig leaf. The richest man on Earth is ready to donate millions to charity, but not a billion, and, moreover, not billions.

Charitable work of Carlos Slim

Once Carlos Slim was asked about his attitude to philanthropy, and he answered in a haughty manner: “ I'm not Santa Claus, charity won't solve poverty».

However, in recent years (after the death of his wife and the discovery of heart disease), Carlos Slim Elu nevertheless began to demonstrate a desire to do charity work and correct his image, which was considered repulsive: “ When I die, I won't take anything with me.».

On the accounts of charitable institutions created by Mr. Slim, there are about 4 billion dollars. Carlos Slim invests in the development of education and the social sphere in Mexico. He 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.

Carlos Slim Elu has his own view on the problem of providing social assistance. The Slim family is trying to invest more in the development of the national economy than in social subsidies. After all, the best way to help people is to provide an opportunity to work, and not just give them money. 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 follows on the instructions of his father.

Carlos Slim Elu has many honorary titles and awards not only from Mexico, but also from the USA and several 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.

Personal and family life of Carlos Slim

In 1966, Carlos Slim married a girl named Somaya Domit Germayel, who was also of Lebanese origin and was a cousin of former Lebanese President Gemayel. He lived happily with her for 32 years until her death in 1999.

A life of excessive wealth led Carlos Slim to become markedly obese. A man with a double chin, a crow's gait and sparse gray hair, glamorous magazines continue to seriously call Mexico's "most desirable widower". However, he is not attracted by glamorous fame, and he is indifferent to busty beauties.

Love for the family hearth was instilled in him and his brothers from early childhood. Father and mother taught them to enjoy life and realize the responsibility of each to the family. The issue of responsibility has always been at the core of the Slim family philosophy. It was this feeling that helped Carlos Slim become the richest man in the world. In the next 25 years, the wealthy and influential Slim family could be an extremely positive factor in the development of Latin America.

Success Secrets of Carlos Slim

The basis of the capital of Carlos Slim Elu was laid by his father. But still, Carlos Slim did not become the heir to a millionth fortune, although he had a good stable income. So his current status as a billionaire, without any exaggeration, can be called a personal merit based on hard work, business acumen and, of course, entrepreneurial talent.

Mr. Slim, the richest man in the world, is known for his frugality. During business meetings, he defiantly wears an old cheap watch with a built-in calculator.

A few years ago, he wrote the so-called "corporate code" for employees of the manufacturing conglomerate Grupo Carso. One of his rules says:

And this is in a country where tens of millions of people barely make ends meet, from ancient times consider material well-being to be the highest good, and people who achieve it are God's chosen ones, where everyone who has earned an extra thousand pesos considers himself terribly enterprising and hurries to show off his successes to everyone light. In this country, the most prominent billionaire does not show any desire to publish the facts of his own biography, does not strive for loud self-promotion and self-promotion and in every possible way avoids discussing the details of his life.

Meanwhile, there was nothing supernatural in Slim Al's abilities and career path, and there is nothing special to hide. For those who are seriously interested in the biography of Carlos Slim, the story of his success and rise to the heights of business, all of its more or less important points are known, or, in any case, information about them is available.

Well, what is left behind the scenes of the official chronicle - and this is also not a secret - refers to the sphere of "behind-the-scenes strategy" and "undercover struggle", without which commerce is now, perhaps, nowhere, and even in Latin America it is impossible in principle .

The richest man, with all his billions, leads a modest lifestyle. He continues to live in the house that his 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.

Slim has a laptop but has never used it. Carlos Slim Helu is famous for keeping countless data in his head, both about his entrepreneurship and about his competitors. Because of this, it is hellishly difficult to negotiate with him - he has any information on any issue! For example, in a conversation about baseball statistics, Carlos Slim Helu can give the results and achievements of any player in any tournament, owning information that, often, no one else remembers except him.

Carlos Slim has always been partial to powerful politicians, and this is the secret of his ascent to the top of the Forbes list. Unlike, for example, Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, he is a classic oligarch created in the "dashing nineties." It was at this time that he easily becomes a billionaire thanks to the Mexican "privatization for his own."

Carlos Slim, the richest man in the world, constantly uses political connections to clear his “field of activity” from competitors. It finances all politicians, regardless of their political coloring. But, of course, the ruling conservative-Catholic National Action Party, to which the incumbent President Felipe Calderon also belongs, enjoys special sympathy for the oligarch.

As befits Latin Americans, Carlos makes the main bet on his family - all senior positions in his business are occupied by relatives. Having undergone a heart operation in 1997, Carlos Slim Elu is gradually retiring and passing the initiative to his sons, who form the backbone of the Slim family business.

The post of chairman of the board of the trade and industrial group, the telecommunications holding, its main company Telmex and the venture capital enterprise America Telecom is held by the eldest son Carlos, and his brothers, Patrick and Marco Antonio, head, respectively, America Movil and Grupo Financiero Inbursa - the underlying financial structure family empire. And the founder himself controls their activities and puts forward new ideas.

Even the sons of Carlos, who are still teenagers: Carlos Jr. and Marco Antonio, are already helping their father in business. " I want to create a clan like the Rockefeller clan, but in Latin America”, jokes Carlos Slim Helu.

British expert economist Porter Gifford once suggested that all the most legal Latin American fortunes are based on three fundamental elements: the exploitation of the subsoil, the exploitation of the needs of the poor and the exploitation of political ties. And the biography of Carlos Slim confirms this thesis almost completely.

Carlos Slim's empire is evolving at an unprecedented pace. If this growth continues, then, without a doubt, Carlos Slim will remain the richest man in the world, not only this year, but also next.

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Carlos Slim Helu is a Mexican billionaire who tops the Forbes list. His fortune, according to 2013, is $ 73 billion. At the same time, his name appears in the press much less frequently than the names of the second and third billionaires in the world, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. But the other day he made a statement that forced the media in many countries to write about him. Carlos Slim Elu expressed the opinion that people should work only three days a week, devoting 10-11 hours a day to work. Four weekends people should spend with their families, take care of their health and education. At the same time, 74-year-old Carlos Slim is sure that now people are retiring too early. We must allow them to work fully until the age of 70, and those who feel the strength in themselves - even longer. Three days - to work, four - to rest and do other things. Who is this person who offers such an attractive layout of life?

Carlos Slim Elu was born on January 28, 1940 in Mexico City. He was the fifth child of a Lebanese refugee and the daughter of a successful Lebanese merchant. His father, Julian Slim, came to Mexico in 1902 to escape mandatory conscription into the Ottoman army.

Julian Slim quickly got used to the new place. At the beginning of his career, he traded real estate, and later he became the owner of several mansions and a supermarket in downtown Mexico City. All six of Julian's children helped their father from an early age, for which they received quite impressive "pocket money" by children's standards. The father watched how the children spend their savings, simultaneously teaching them the basics of money management. Each of the children had a notebook in which they wrote down their income and expenses, and the father not only controlled the movement of money, but also gave advice on how to increase capital.

Of all the children, Carlos was the smartest, most talented and diligent. In addition, the boy had the ability to do mathematics, which helped him to start investing. Carlos made his first "adult" investments at the age of 12, acquiring shares in a Mexican bank. And the first million Carlos Slim Elu earned 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. In senior years, Carlos earned in another, rather unusual way - he taught algebra and programming to students of other courses.

At the age of 25, Carlos left the walls of the university with a degree in civil engineering, but he never began to work in his specialty. By that time, young Slim was already the owner of quite significant capital, part of which he invested in the purchase of hotels, the insurance business and trade. In the latest industry, Slim had an idea. It consisted in the fact that in his stores the prices of goods were affordable for ordinary Mexicans.

In 1982, Mexico experienced a major economic crisis due to the country's inability to pay off its foreign debt. Taking advantage of this, the wealthy Slim bought up a lot of assets on the cheap. Many promising companies that found themselves in a hopeless situation became the property of Slim. Then Slim founded his first investment holding Carso Group. The name of the holding is formed from the first syllables of the names of Carlos and his wife Soumai.

In the crisis of the 80s, Carlos Slim turns his attention to the mining industry. As a result, he becomes the owner of Frisco Corporation - the leader of the national mining and chemical industries.

Slim's influence on the Mexican economy becomes such that every Mexican is exposed to his companies or products. At this time, Slim begins to climb to the heights of the political Olympus. True, Slim does not go directly into politics, preferring to establish and maintain good relations with the authorities. Close relations and even friendship with Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari in 1988-94 played into the hands of Slim in the privatization of the then monopoly in the communications market - the state telecommunications company Telmex (Telefonos de Mexico).

This acquisition subsequently became the cause of a major scandal. The fact is that, having acquired a stake, Slim, under the terms of the contract, had to share part of the proceeds with Gotari and the ruling party of the country. The details of the deal were known only to the two of them, the investigation did not particularly find out anything, and after Gotari resigned, the story came to naught.

Despite the blow to his reputation, Carlos Slim continued to explore the promising telecommunications market. In the late 90s and early 2000s, Slim becomes the owner of a 30 percent stake in America Movil, a Latin American consortium of cellular operators. In 2008 in The New York Times and Citibank. In 2011, he invested in the largest Spanish media company Prisa. According to experts, Carlos Slim often made investments at times when companies were experiencing difficulties and were even on the verge of a crisis. Slim, thanks to his organizational skills, managed to establish a business so that he again began to work and make a profit. With many "restored" assets, Slim parted. Naturally with a profit. C some - did not part even despite the tempting offers. So in 2002, he bought the liabilities of the bankrupt WorldCom at a bargain price and became the largest shareholder of MCI formed in its place. Verizon was ready to buy MCI shares from him for the sake of the merger, Slim would have received $ 600 million in net profit. But he opposed the deal. As a result, Verizon had to pay him $1.12 billion. Slim's profit was about $1 billion.

In 2002, the Mexican first entered the Forbes rich list. By 2006, he is in the top three, second only to Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. In 2007 - on the second line of the Forbes list, and according to others, Gates himself. Forbes named Carlos Slim the richest man in the world in 2010. Since then, he has managed to keep the lead.

Interesting facts about Carlos Slim Elu

Loves art. The world's largest owner of sculptures by Auguste Rodin. In honor of his wife, who died in 1999, he founded the Museo Soumaya Museum in Mexico City, which exhibits sculptures from his collection.
Once a year, the whole huge Slim family, including little grandchildren and sons - business tycoons, gathers on vacation on the west coast of Mexico. Family values and responsibility are always in the first place for Slims.
Slim's mansion has a humidor - a room with strictly controlled temperature and humidity, necessary for storing cigars. According to the stories of connoisseurs, sometimes, it was there, smoking a cigar, that Slim made the most important decisions that brought him to the top of the list of rich people.
Carlos Slim himself taught mathematics to his six children, at the same time instilling in them the basics of business. Three sons followed in the footsteps of their father, the eldest of them - Carlos Slim Domit - is the chairman of the board of directors of the Carso Group.
The richest man in Mexico rarely uses the services of bodyguards.
He is famous for his frugality and does not like luxury. Even at meetings at the highest level, he wears a simple digital watch with a built-in calculator.
He founded the Carlos Slim Institute of Health, a foundation dedicated to fighting cancer and diabetes.
millions and billions into the economy and education of Mexico.
Carlos Slim Elu is one of the main investors in Nicolás Negroponte's "Laptop for Every Child" program.

10 rules of life from Carlos Slim Elu

When I decide to do something, I do it quickly.
When, during the crisis, everyone got rid of assets, I, on the contrary, bought.
I spend most of my time learning new technologies. I need to know what's going on in the world and how to make money from it.
Poverty is the best environment for growth. Getting my country out of poverty is the biggest investment of my life.
Wealth is a garden in which fruits are to be shared, not trees.
Avoid excesses even in the easiest times of your life, for this will provide you with stability in times of greatest difficulty.
Compromise and responsibility are the main components of a successful business.
My goal is not money. I strive to create successful companies with a close-knit team.
I don't care about my reputation. If you live on other people's thoughts, you are dead. I don't want to live the rest of my life worrying about what posterity will say about me.
Many people want to change the world for the better for their children. I want to change my children so that they serve the world.