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 Business News | March 2005 
Mexico's Carlos Slim Becomes First Latin American Among World's Five Richest Men
 Keralanext
| "His business rivals – the few he has – absolutely hate him because they don't have his influence and they have to deal with far more competition in their markets," says Celso Garrido, an economics professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
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Mexico City – A buying spree and the stellar performance of Mexico's stock exchange helped make telecom magnate Carlos Slim Helu one of the world's five richest billionaires, the first Latin American to earn that distinction.
The 65-year-old Slim jumped to No. 4 on Forbes magazine's 2005 rankings with an estimated net worth of $23.8 billion. Last year, he was in 17th place with $13.9 billion.
Experts don't see his monetary momentum stopping anytime soon. It could lead to the world's richest man coming from a country where about half the people survive on $10 or less a day.
"This probably isn't even the peak of his fortune," said Lea Goldman, coeditor of the list released Friday. "He has very aggressive plans for increasing subscribers at some of his ventures, so he's probably going to keep going up."
However, part of his phenomenal rise was due to better reporting on his assets and to the growth of the Mexican stock exchange last year, Goldman said.
Slim, the son of Lebanese immigrants, first made his money in retail then branched into telecommunications with the purchase of former telephone monopoly Telefonos de Mexico, or Telmex, which remains Mexico's dominant carrier. It was the start of a buying spree targeting other telecom companies throughout the Americas.
Forget the rule about buying low and selling high – Slim just keeps buying.
"He's known for buying when assets are at a low point and undervalued, and then, well, he doesn't appear to get rid of them," said Federico Estevez, a professor of political science at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico.
Slim has a ways to go before catching Bill Gates, who led the Forbes list with $46.5 billion, about twice Slim's fortune. But some say the Mexican's empire is more dynamic and growth-oriented than the American's, arguing Microsoft is already at the top of an increasingly competitive software market.
What's more, Slim – whose representatives declined to comment on the record for this story – seems to have a knack for identifying undervalued assets.
Celso Garrido, an economics professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, says he uses Slim as a case study in his classes. Students are given the assignment of finding out how Slim's net worth could rise so much.
"This is an astounding rise in assets," he said. "This guy is just buying all the time. That's his strategy."
Many here say Slim is able to buy so much – a large stake in MCI, as well as cell phone and land carriers throughout Central and South America – because of cash cow Telmex, in which the government essentially handed him a monopoly at a 1991 privatization sale.
"His business rivals – the few he has – absolutely hate him because they don't have his influence and they have to deal with far more competition in their markets," Estevez said.
While Slim probably wouldn't draw cheers from average Mexicans, he likely wouldn't get many catcalls either.
Still, immense fortunes like Slim's remain a sensitive subject here.
On Thursday, when Slim's ranking was first announced, President Vicente Fox said Mexico had made progress toward a more equitable distribution of income.
"For the first time, we are reducing poverty and seeing something very important: the creation of a powerful middle class in Mexico," Fox said.
Not so, according to Laura Juarez, a researcher for Mexico's Labor University. Despite the wealth of some, Juarez said, "we are not seeing any reduction in poverty, but we are seeing the steady disappearance of the middle class."
Former senator and economic professor Jorge Calderon said the problem is not Slim but a government that has allowed him to get so rich while many Mexicans remain so poor.
"My concern is neither to disqualify Mr. Slim, nor to interpret his purported ranking as something positive for Mexico," Calderon said. "It is rather that Mexico should strengthen its tax collection framework so that Mr. Slim's businesses are contributing to the development of the country and its areas of poverty." |
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