Carlos Slim | Notable Biographies

(1940/01/28 - Unknown)

Carlos Slim Helu
Mexican businessman

He was born on January 28, 1940 in the City of Mexico.
Member of a family of third generation of Catholic Lebanese emigrants who settled in Mexico.
Son of Julián Slim Haddad and Linda Helu. His father was the owner of a prosperous business close to National Palace and occasionally bought old colonial mansions that were worth more for their land than for its architecture. At the age of 12 years, already noted in an accounting book their investments in bonds and was clearly favorable to compound interest.
Civil engineer by profession, he studied in the University of national Autonoma de Mexico, where taught the Chair of Algebra and linear programming. With his inheritance he built a multi-story building where he lived with his wife and children. Extraordinary financial, started buying several factories and businesses that did prosper. Carlos Slim Helú, the Mexican entrepreneur par excellence and one of the richest men in the world, the highest bidder of telecommunications and e-commerce in Mexico. The President of the Aztec giant Grupo Carso, present in almost all sectors, promotes telecommunications and the development of Internet in the country. Like his father, who made his fortune by buying properties at low prices in the Centre of the city of Mexico after the bloody revolution of 1910, Carlos combines the ability to bargain with a sense of patriotism.
In 1982, when the combination of the fall of oil prices and public deficits led to the Mexican economy on the verge of collapse, it began to bail out companies that would later consolidate in his grupo Carso, the most important industrial conglomerate of Latin America. The ability of Slim of locating a good business nor restricted to the national economy. In a typical move of his, he bought about 3 percent of Apple Computer in 1997, just a few days before the return of Steve Jobs to the computer company. A year later, and after the introduction of the computer iMac, the price of Apple shares had risen from 17 to 100 dollars.
The omnipresent rule of Slim, who established with great skill and care, became the man of Latin America and the world richer. Telmex, the telecommunications company controlled by him, unveiled an alliance with SBC Communications and Bell Canada $ 3,500 million dollars. The operation brings together the telecommunications company in Canada, one of the most important operators in the United States and the dominant firm of Mexico to attack the wireless markets and broadband Internet.
The Mexican press likes to compare it to Midas, and is not surprising. In the ten years that Telmex was privatized, it goes from being wobbly monopoly controlled by the State, to become the main value of Latin American publicly traded. Even the biggest critics of Slim admits that this mysterious businessman would be a very rich man but without its widespread influence. Informatics and telecommunications sectors are very high on their list of preferences. In United States, it looked for companies that passed through difficulties, and the good wisdom to choose enabled him to build an empire in the forefront of what he calls "new civilization".
In 1997 it acquired Prodigy, a battered U.S. provider of Internet services, and since then has launched a portal in Spanish next to Microsoft. He paid 800 million dollars by CompUSA. His three sons given the Carso group and its subsidiary financial Group Inbursa, since the father left the reins in 1998. His two sons-in-law are responsible for the divisions of mobile and Internet de Telmex. "The engineer", as it is called, remains at the head of Telmex and reserves the last word in most matters.
On September 10, 2008 buy a 6.4% of the The New York Times, for an approximate value of $123 million and becomes the third largest shareholder of the company, after the Ochs-Sulzberger family, who have maintained control of the Times since 1898, and Harbinger Capital hedge fund Partners.
Slim became the maximum shareholder of Real Oviedo of Spain football club. The Mexican became shareholders of the Asturian set in November 2012 as an extension of historical capital which had saved the Oviedo of the disappearance. Slim controls the 58.45% of the carbayona entity and is your partner 15,000. The Tycoon left the management of the entity in the hands of his son-in-law, Arturo Elías Ayub.
On April 23, 2014, it took control of Telekom Austria, the largest operator in the Alpine country, under a 10-year agreement, was its first acquisition of business successfully in Europe.
According to Forbes magazine, his fortune ranked it as the world's richest man. In March 2011 the same magazine returned to position him as the richest man on the planet. In a year the Tycoon increased his fortune 20.500 billion dollars until it is in the 74,000 million. On July 15, 2014, Forbes announced that it recovered the position as the richest person, with a fortune of $79.6 billion, and in September of the same year, Forbes continues as no. 1 with a net worth of $81.6 billion.
Father of 6 sons, Carlos, Marco Antonio, Patrick, Soumaya, Vanessa and Johanna. Three of them (Carlos, Marco Antonio and Patrick) working in his father's business. His wife Soumaya Domit, died on March 7, 1999; they were married from 1967.