Carlos Slim

Background

Ethnicity: Carlos Slim's family is of Lebanese descent. Slim's maternal grandparents immigrated to Mexico from Lebanon in the late 19th century. His father, Julién Slim Haddad, immigrated to Mexico from Lebanon at age 14.

Carlos Slim was born on 28 January 1940, in Mexico City, to Julián Slim Haddad and Linda Helú Atta, both Maronite Christians from Lebanon. Carlos’ father, born Khalil Salim Haddad Aglamaz, was sent to Mexico in 1902 to avoid being drafted into the Ottoman Army. After arriving in Mexico, Carlos’s father changed his name to Julián Slim Haddad. With one of his brothers, he opened a dry-goods store in Mexico City. In Mexico, he would meet Dona Linda Helú, originally from Mexico, but with Lebanese parents. Linda Helú’s father, José Helú, was the one who brought the first Arabic printing press to Mexico and founded one of the first community magazines focused on Lebanese immigrants.

The couple raised six children, Nour, Alma, Julián, José, Carlos, and Linda, of whom Carlos Slim Helú was the fifth. The senior Slim encouraged all of his children to learn and understand finance.

Education

From a young age, Carlos took an interest in his father’s business. And his father happily obliged with business lessons about management, reading financial statements, and keeping accurate financial records. Young Carlos also showed a special aptitude for numbers, and by age 12 was buying shares in the Bank of Mexico. When Carlos Slim was 13, his father died, and the next years were difficult for Carlos.

When Slim graduated high school, he went on to the National Autonomous University of Mexico, where he studied civil engineering while teaching algebra and linear programming. While studying civil engineering, Slim also took an interest in economics, taking a series of courses on the subject in Chile after he graduated in 1961.

Career

Slim and his siblings were taught business from an early age by their father and by the age of 12, Slim bought shares in a Mexican bank. Although his father died in 1953, Slim continued to work in his business until he was 17. By 1965, at the age of 25, his trading had netted him roughly $400,000, more than $3 million in present dollars. He used the money to open his own brokerage firm, called Inversora Bursátil.

He began to build the foundations of Grupo Carso. Inmobiliaria Carso was incorporated in January 1966, three months before marrying Soumaya Domit Gemayel, hence the name Carso, which is a combination of the first three letters of Carlos and the first two letters of Soumaya.

Remembering the lessons of thrift he had learned from his father, he and his growing family lived modestly, while earnings from his businesses were re-invested in expansion and more acquisitions. Over the next two decades, Carlos Slim astutely acquired companies he believed were undervalued and skillfully overhauled their management. He diversified methodically, investing in real estate, then a construction equipment company, then mining interests. The portfolio of Slim companies grew to include a printer, a tobacco company, and retail stores.

He attained billionaire status in the aftermath of the economic crash of 1982, when the Mexican government, defaulting on foreign debts in light of a devalued peso, began nationalizing banks and scaring away business investors. Having purchased at bargain prices controlling interests in a variety of companies, Slim managed them so effectively that within the span of a decade their aggregate value soared.

Around 1985, Grupo Carso acquired control of Artes Gráficas Unidas, Papel Factories Loreto, and Peña Pobre, as well as most of Sanborns and its subsidiary Dennys. In 1986, the company Minera FRISCO and Empresas Nacobre, as well as its different subsidiaries, was acquired. Control was also purchased from the Euzkadi tire company, the leader in the market at the time, and years later, the majority of General Tire was acquired. In 1991, he acquired the chain of Hoteles Calinda (today, OSTAR Grupo Hotelero) Bonding, as well as one of the biggest investors.

In the 90s, Carlos Slim bought Telmex, which today has developed a worldwide reach and has invested a lot of money in the Latin American telecommunication infrastructure where his company operates. This was under the mandate of Carlos Salinas de Gortari who carried out a privatization policy, so Carlos Slim could buy Teléfonos de México, S.A. (Telmex) together with France Telecom of France and SBC Telecom of the United States.

The mobile-telephone division of Telmex, América Móvil, became a separate company in 2001 and enjoyed several years of spectacular growth, eventually becoming one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world. América Móvil purchased its former parent in 2011.

Slim acquired the ailing electronics products and services company CompUSA in 2000. After realizing that he had misjudged his ability to turn the company around - a rare misstep for Slim - he sold it in 2007. By the following year, Slim had become the largest shareholder in the New York Times Company, the financial conglomerate Citigroup, the luxury retailer Saks, and the consumer electronics retailer Circuit City. On April 23, 2014, Slim gained control of his first successful European acquisition, Telekom Austria. The company has already established mobile services in seven European countries and Slim views it as an excellent opportunity, to expand into the Central and Eastern European markets.

In the first month of 2017, Carlos Slim announced plans to launch a new television network in the United States, to be called Nuestra Vision (Our Vision), presenting "100 percent Mexican content," including news, movies, and sports. The new network competes with Univision and Mexico’s Televisa for a potential audience of 11.7 million Mexican immigrants, or the estimated 35 million persons of Mexican origin or ancestry living in the United States.

Achievements

• 

  Carlos Slim Helu is one of the wealthiest men in the world and has spent nearly his entire lifetime in the business industry. Having made his first investment at the age of 12, he now is a multi-billionaire who owns stakes in some of the biggest companies in the world. As of 2020, Carlos Slim's net worth is $53.8 billion.
  
  An inquisitive businessman, Slim has amassed a wide range of industries under his company Grupo Carso. But his acquisition of the communications company Telmex previously managed by the Mexican Government established his monopoly over the land phone and mobile services market as the company provided telecommunication services to about 80% of the Mexican population.
  
  Slim received an Honorary Doctorate in Public Service from the George Washington University.

Religion

Slim’s parents were immigrants from Lebanon, and while there, were part of a distinct sect of Roman Catholicism called the Maronite Catholics.

Politics

Slim is not known to have a political party affiliation and has repeatedly rejected the idea of running for President of Mexico. He said: "Not at all. I think my vocation is an entrepreneur. I don't have a political vocation." Slim is also a major Barack Obama supporter.

In 2015-2016 Slim publicly criticized Republican United States presidential candidate Donald Trump for making allegedly racist comments about Mexican immigrants to the United States, for proposing to build a wall along the United States-Mexico border, and for threatening to withdraw the United States from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Following an unexpected meeting between the two men in December 2016 (by which time Trump had become president-elect), Slim restated his view that investment and economic development in Mexico would prevent unwanted immigration much more effectively than a physical wall.

Views

Slim has been criticized for accumulating so much wealth in a nation where about half the people are living in poverty. He did join President Bill Clinton and Canadian mining figure Frank Giustra to launch an anti-poverty campaign in Latin America. But he told USA Today, that education and jobs can fight poverty better than charity. Still, he was on Forbes' list of the World's Biggest Givers in May 2011 for donating $4 billion to his anti-poverty foundation.

A noted art collector and philanthropist, Slim founded (1994) a not-for-profit art museum, Museo Soumaya (named for his wife), in Mexico City. In 2011 the museum moved to a larger building in the city. The new anvil-shaped structure - designed by Fernando Romero, Slim’s son-in-law - featured a facade covered in aluminum hexagons, and the interior offered 183,000 square feet (17,000 square meters) of exhibition space. Slim was also prominent in the revitalization of the historic center of Mexico City, establishing (2000) the Foundation for the Historic Centre of Mexico City, and he received the Hadrian Award from the World Monuments Fund in 2004 for his efforts in preserving culturally significant buildings in Mexico City.

Slim also received several awards for his philanthropic efforts, which included the establishment of the Carlos Slim Foundation, focusing on the areas of health, sports, and education through such organizations as the Carlos Slim Institute of Health, which funds research projects on public health in Mexico. In 2009 the Carlos Slim Foundation partnered with Grameen Trust - a nonprofit venture of Grameen Bank, the Bangladeshi bank founded by economist Muhammad Yunus as a means of providing small loans to poor individuals - to launch the Grameen-Carso microcredit program in Mexico.

Quotations: "All times are good time for those who know how to work and have the tools to do so."

"Live the present intensely and fully, do not let the past be a burden, and let the future be an incentive. Each person forges his or her own destiny."

"Courage taught me no matter how bad a crisis gets… any sound investment will eventually pay off."

"Do not allow negative feelings and emotions to control your mind. Emotional harm does not come from others; it is conceived and developed within ourselves."

"Money is not a goal. The goal is to make companies grow, develop, be competitive, be in different areas, be efficient to have a great human team inside the company."

"Mistakes are normal and human. Make them small, accept them, correct them, and forget them."

"It’s important to give a better country to your children, but it is more important to give better children to your country."

"With good perspective of history we can have a better understanding of the past and present, and thus a clear vision of the future."

"Anything that has privileges have responsibility and all people that is clear about their responsibility has compromise."

Personality

From a young age, Slim has practiced financial restraint. He still lives in the same modest 6-bedroom home where he's resided for the past three decades. His cramped bedroom is "the size of a Manhattan hotel room." And, despite the prevalence of kidnappings in Mexico, Carlos Slim still drives himself to work.

Rather than living a luxurious life around the world, he likes to enjoy his home country. He wears clothes from his own modest store, doesn't travel very much, and doesn't own a single home outside of Mexico. According to the same Wall Street Journal interview, Slim prefers an old school pen and paper to a computer, though he loves to talk about technology.

While soccer remains Mexico's most popular sport, Slim has an avid affinity for baseball - especially the New York Yankees. In 1998, he penned an article for a Mexico City magazine about obscure historical baseball figures. Slim has a passion for history, nature, and art (he is considered the world's foremost collector of Rodin statues).

Interests

• history, cosmography, mathematics

• Politicians

  Barack Obama

• Writers

  The Peter Principle by Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull, Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went by John Kenneth Galbraith, Future Shock by Alvin Toffler

• Artists

  Rodin, Van Gogh, Renoir

• Sport & Clubs

  football, baseball, New York Yankees

• Music & Bands

  Los Bukis

Connections

Carlos married Soumaya Domit in 1966 at the age of 26. The relationship remained amicable until her death in the year 1999. The couple had six children together, Carlos, Marco Antonio, Patrick, Soumaya, Vanessa, and Johanna.

Father:

Julián Slim Haddad

Every Sunday his father would give Carlos a 5-peso allowance, requiring him to record his purchases in a ledger.

Mother:

Linda Helú Atta

Spouse:

Soumaya Domit Gemayel

Soumaya Domit Gemayel met her future husband, Carlos Slim Helú, for the first time in 1964, when he was 24 years old and she was only a teenager. She grew up in a house only a few streets from his childhood home.

The two were eventually married in 1966. That year, they went to visit different locations all over the world for a 40-day trip for their honeymoon. Their trip included visits to England, Greece, New York, Naples, Spain, and France.

Sister:

Nour Slim Helú

Sister:

Alma Slim Helú

Brother:

José Slim Helú

Brother:

Julián Slim Helú

Sister:

Linda Helú Slim

Cousin:

Alfredo Harp Helú

Son:

Carlos Slim Domit

Carlos Slim Domit serves as Chairman of the Board of the Company AB de CV since April 30, 2015.

Daughter:

Johanna Slim Domit

Johanna Monique Slim Domit is on the board of Grupo Sanborns SAB de CV, Inversora Carso SA de CV and Sanborn Hermanos SA and Head-Early Childhood Education at Fundación Carlos Slim Helú AC.

Son:

Patrick Slim Domit

Patrick Slim Domit is the Chief Executive Officer of Grupo Sanborns SA de CV

Son:

Marco Antonio Slim Domit

Marco Antonio Slim Domit is a businessman and the second eldest son of Carlos Slim Helú. He currently serves as the chairman of Seguros Inbursa, IDEAL (Impulsora del Desarrollo y el Empleo en América Latina), and Instituto Carlos Slim de la Salud. He is also the director of Grupo Carso, Carso Global Telecom and Inversora Carso.

Daughter:

Vanessa Slim Domit

Vanessa Paola Slim Domit is on the board of Inversora Carso SA de CV.

Daughter:

Soumaya Slim Domit

Soumaya Slim Domit is on the board of Inversora Carso SA de CV.

Friend:

Bill Clinton

Friend:

Hillary Clinton

References

• Carlos Slim Official Site
• Carlos Slim: The Power, Money, and Morality of One of the World's Richest Men
  2019
• The World's Richest Man: Carlos Slim In His Own Words
  2014