Carlos Slim is a well-known philanthropist and financier who was born in Mexico. Forbes magazine has recognized him as the wealthiest man in the world for several years, and he controls over 200 enterprises in a broad range of sectors. He worked for the family business as a child., having learned fundamental business skills from his father at a very young age. After graduating from college, he started investing in earnest and constructing a multi-industry empire of conglomerates and enterprises, both of which he established and acquired. He has investments in Latin American and worldwide enterprises in fields ranging from construction and manufacturing to tobacco and dry goods. His most well-known and powerful assets include a near-complete monopoly on the mobile phone industry in Mexico, which at one time offered more than 80% of the mobile services utilized in that nation. A portion of his immense fortune is donated to several charitable causes, including preserving the environment, providing reliable and inexpensive health care, protecting culture and the arts, and numerous other humanitarian initiatives. He is the honorary chairman for the life of his parent firm, “Grupo Carso,” but after undergoing heart surgery, his children have assumed many of his everyday tasks.

Early Life & Childhood

• Carlos Slim Hel was born in Mexico City, Mexico, on January 28, 1940, to parents of Lebanese origin. His father was a prosperous dry goods company owner and one of six children.
• Their father began teaching Slim and his siblings about business at a young age, and by the age of 12, Slim had purchased shares in a Mexican bank. Even though his father passed away in 1953, Slim continued working in the family company until he was 17.
• He majored in civil engineering at Mexico’s National Autonomous University. In addition to teaching algebra and linear programming while in school, he quickly entered the corporate world after graduation.

Career

• Slim’s father gave him a strong business background, which he used to start his own business in Mexico as a trader. Soon after, he started his brokerage that invested in different businesses. By 1965, his money had grown so he could start other businesses or buy them outright.
• By 1966, he was already worth about $40 million, which was still rising. Early in his career, he invested in a lot of different businesses. However, his main interests were construction, mining, and real estate, and he continued to buy businesses in those fields.
• During the 1970s, he kept adding to his business empire by starting and buying companies in many different fields. By 1980, he had put all of his holdings under one company called “Grupo Galas,” which was the parent company.
• In 1982, when oil prices dropped, Mexico’s economy, which was mostly based on oil, suffered and collapsed. The government took over banks, and the Peso’s value fell. During the next few years, when the economy worsened, Slim bought more shares in Mexican branches of international companies, like a 50% stake in “The Hershey Company.”
• In 1990, his business group, Grupo Carso, went public worldwide. In the same year, he expanded his power into telephone communications. He worked with “France Télécom” and “Southwestern Bell Corporation” to buy the Mexican government’s share of the phone company “Telmex.” This marked the beginning of a near-total takeover of the nation’s landline and later mobile phone services.
• Slim’s interests began to go beyond Latin America after he had bought the Mexican branches of many international companies for a long time. He set up a branch of his phone company, Telmex, in the US. He also bought a piece of a US-based mobile company, Tracfone. He also had heart surgery and started to step away from his business, leaving it in the hands of his children and other family members.
• Throughout the 2000s, he developed his empire in the United States and Latin America by purchasing and selling firms and extending his shares in his established mobile phone and tobacco businesses. During this period, he invested in several firms, including “The New York Times Company,” “Saks Fifth Avenue,” and “Volaris.”
• On April 23, 2014, Slim took charge of “Telekom Austria,” his first successful European purchase. The company already has mobile services set up in seven European countries, and Slim thinks expanding into the Central and Eastern European markets is a great idea.
• As of January 15, 2015, he owned 16.8% of “The New York Times Company,” making him the person with the most shares. To buy these shares, Slim used money from loans given to the company when it had trouble at the start of the US recession.

Major Work

Slim is a curious businessman who has built his company, Grupo Carso, to include a wide range of businesses. But when he bought the communications company “Telmex,” which was previously run by the Mexican government, he became the only one who could offer landline and mobile phone services. About 80% of the Mexican population used services from this company.

Philanthropy 

• Slim has publicly criticized The Giving Pledge, a movement spearheaded by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett in which they pledge to donate at least half of their fortunes to charity.
• But, according to a spokesman, as of 2011, he had given $4 billion, or about 5%, to the Carlos Slim Foundation. Even though Slim hasn’t given away more than half of his fortune like Gates and Buffett, he is a strong supporter of philanthropy and has told aspiring business owners that they should do more than give money—they “should help solve problems.”
• Slim started three non-profit foundations in Mexico City. One was for the arts, education, and health care. The other two were for sports and fixing up downtown.
• Forbes named Slim one of the most generous people outside of the US in 2019.

Awards 

This billionaire has been ranked the wealthiest man in the world by ‘Forbes magazine. He has earned almost all of his enormous money.

Trivia

Slim is often compared to billionaire Warren Buffett. In March 2007, Slim passed Buffett as the world’s richest man.