The World's Wealthiest Person

In Mexico, a country described by many travel writers as a land of topographical, geographical, historical, and cultural contrasts, resides one Mr. Carlos Slim Helu. The tycoon of all tycoons, Mr. Slim, in March, 2010, was named by Forbes magazine as being the wealthiest person in the world. He is the first person from a developing country and the first non-American since 1994 to be bestowed with that distinction. As of April, 2010, his net worth was estimated to be $60.6 billion. His vast and ever-expanding financial empire dominates Mexico’s commercial landscape.

The youngest of six children, Mr. Slim, on January 28, 1940, in Mexico City, was born to immigrant Lebanese parents. His father, Julian, a shopkeeper by trade, accumulated a great deal of wealth as a result of purchasing real estate during the tumultuous times of the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1920. As a child, Carlos Slim demonstrated a keen interest in and understanding of financial matters.

Shortly after graduating from the National Autonomous University of Mexico with a degree in civil engineering, Mr. Slim started his own stock brokerage firm. By the time that he was 26 years old his holdings were valued at $40 million. During Mexico’s deep recession of 1982, with great foresight, it was then that his wealth skyrocketed as he exhibited tremendous business savvy and acumen in purchasing financially struggling companies and, then, turning them over for substantial profits.

However, it was not until 1990 that Mr. Slim joined the elite of the world’s business giants. With a group of financial partners, he purchased from the Mexican government the monopolistic phone company, Telmex. The Slim family now owns 49.1% of Telmex and with some of the highest user and installation rates in the world, that company controls at least 83% of Mexico’s land lines and, also, is the country’s leading internet provider. Moreover, Telcel, another of his telecommunications investments, dominates the Mexican cell phone market with approximately an 80% share. Yet, what is turning out to be his greatest yielding investment is American Movil that is reaping huge profits and which propelled him to the position of the world’s wealthiest person; that company is Latin America’s dominant mobile phone provider with at least 215 million subscribers in that region, and in the last year his $23 billion stake in that company rose an impressive 35%.

Between his conglomerate Grupo Carso and his other financial entities, Mr. Slim has investments in over 200 companies ranging from telecommunication, technology, manufacturing, construction, banking, insurance, airlines, mining, advertising, real estate, and retail. To provide examples of his seemingly ubiquitous financial empire, in Mexico he owns all of the Saks and Sears stores along with the Sanborns specialty stores and restaurant chain. In the United States, he is the second largest shareholder of Saks and, already having a 6.4% stake in the New York Times, he, in 2009, loaned that financially troubled American iconic newspaper $250 million from which it is estimated that he will receive a 14% profit resulting in at least an additional $24 million per year. Most recently, he is considering entering Manhattan’s retail scene by introducing a Sanborns store there.

Perhaps no statistic better illustrates the enormity of Mr. Slim’s financial prosperity than this- his wealth has been said to be equivalent to 5% of Mexico’s annual economic output (to put this in perspective, Mexico has the world's 11th largest economy). Contrast that to the following: of Mexico’s total population of upwards of 111,000,000 it is estimated that 11% of its people live in extreme poverty (defined as not having adequate resources to buy enough food) and with another 34% of its people living in moderate poverty (defined as not having enough money to meet housing, transport, education, and other normal expenses). With a region-based minimum wage of approximately $4.50 per day, despite the government's official statements that unemployment is between 2-3 percent, a more realistic estimate would be that as many as 40% of the country’s work age population are either unemployed or underemployed.

Yes, one Mr. Carlos Slim Helu has earned the title of the world’s richest person. At the same time, close to 50 million of his countrymen and countrywomen struggle on a daily basis to survive. That is indeed an extreme, stark, and dichotomous contrast that shapes Mexico’s present socio-economic landscape and, more than likely, its future horizons- unfortunately, not necessarily for the better.

POSTCRIPT

In March 2011, Forbes magazine stated that Carlos Slim Helu had maintained his position as the wealthiest person in the world, as his fortune had increased to approximately $74 billion.

In 2011, in Mexico it is estimated that more than 40,000,000 people are living on less than $5.00 per day.