57 Facts About Slim Helu

Carlos Slim Helu is a Mexican business magnate, investor, and philanthropist.

From 2010 to 2013, Slim was ranked as the richest person in the world by the Forbes business magazine.

Slim Helu derived his fortune from his extensive holdings in a considerable number of Mexican companies through his conglomerate, Grupo Carso.

Slim was born on 28 January 1940, in Mexico City, to Julian Slim Haddad was born on Khalil Salim Haddad Aglamaz and and Linda Helu Atta, both Maronite Christians from Lebanon.

Slim Helu decided at a young age that he wanted to be a businessman, and received business lessons from his father, who taught him finance, management and accounting, teaching him how to analyze, interpret, and read financial statements as well as the importance of keeping accurate financial records.

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At the age of 11, Slim Helu invested in a government savings bond, which taught him about the concept of compound interest.

Slim Helu eventually saved every financial and business transaction he made into a personal ledger book, which he still keeps.

Slim Helu went on to study civil engineering at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, where he concurrently taught algebra and linear programming.

Slim Helu took economics courses in Chile when he completed his engineering degree.

Slim Helu began laying the financial groundwork for his eventual conglomerate, Grupo Carso.

Slim Helu later expanded his operations and commercial activities by venturing into numerous industries across the Mexican economy including auto parts, aluminum, airlines, chemicals, tobacco, cable and wire manufacturing, paper and packaging, copper and mineral extraction, tires, cement, retail, hotels, beverage distributors, telecommunications and financial services.

Amidst the Mexican economic downturn before its recovery in 1985, Slim Helu invested heavily by snapping up numerous Mexican flagship companies for pennies on the dollar.

Slim Helu purchased all or a sizeable percentage of numerous Mexican businesses at significant discounts, including Empresas Frisco, a mining concessionary and chemical maker, Industrias Nacobre, a copper manufacturer, Reynolds Aluminio, a Mexican aluminum concern, Compania Hulera Euzkadi, and Bimex hotels, a hotel chain.

Slim Helu became the majority shareholder of Sanborn Hermanos, a prominent Mexican food retailer, gift shop and restaurant chain.

Slim Helu spent million to acquire the Mexican insurance agency Seguros de Mexico in 1984, and later subsumed the company into the firm, Seguros Inbursa.

Slim Helu acquired large blocks of Denny's and Firestone Tires.

In 1988, Slim Helu bought Nacobre, a copper manufacturing company that manufactures, markets and distributes copper and copper alloy products, along with a chemical company, Quimica Fluor.

Slim Helu earned windfall profits in the early 1990s when Mexican government began privatizing its telecom industry.

Later in 1990, Slim Helu acted in concert with France Telecom and Southwestern Bell Corporation to purchase the landline telecommunications operator Telmex from the Mexican government, when Mexico began privatizing its national industries.

Slim Helu was an early investment backer in Telmex, as the cash flows and revenues of the company eventually formed the bulk of his private fortune.

In 1999, Slim Helu began expanding his business interests beyond Latin America.

Concurrently, Slim established Carso Infraestructura y Construccion, S A as a non-profit construction and engineering firm within Grupo Carso.

In 2005 Slim Helu invested in Volaris, a Mexican airline and established Impulsora del Desarrollo y el Empleo en America Latina SAB de CV, a Mexican construction and civil engineering company primarily engaged in not-for-profit infrastructure development.

Also 2007, Slim Helu sold his entire stake of tile-maker Porcelanite for US$800million.

Slim Helu licensed the Saks name and opened the Mexican arm of Saks Fifth Avenue retailer in Santa Fe, Mexico.

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In 2012, Slim Helu sold the broadcast rights for the Leon games to the American terrestrial television network, Telemundo, and the cable channel Fox Sports in Mexico and the rest of Latin America and to the website mediotiempo.

Slim Helu has been involved with broadcasting sports outside Mexico to larger markets such as the United States.

Slim Helu has completed business deals for the television rights to games of the Leon soccer team.

In November 2013, Slim Helu invested US$60 million in the Israeli startup Mobli, a company that deals with connections between people and communities corralled according to different interests.

On 23 April 2014, Slim Helu took control of Telekom Austria, Austria's largest telecommunications company, which operates telcos in countries such as Bulgaria, Croatia and Belarus, under a 10-year agreement.

In March 2015, Slim Helu made his presence known in the Spanish business scene by buying stakes in various troubled Spanish companies while perusing potential acquisitions across Europe.

Slim Helu's father, Khalil Salim Haddad Aglamaz, was born on 17 July 1888 in Jezzine, Lebanon.

Slim Helu's parents had immigrated to Mexico from Lebanon in the late 19th century.

Slim Helu was an active businessman and worked in one of Mexico's top intelligence agencies.

Carlos Slim Helu was married to Soumaya Domit from 1967 until her death in 1999.

Slim Helu is a Maronite Catholic, and he is one of the prominent backers of Legion of Christ, a Roman Catholic religious institute.

On 29 March 2007, Slim Helu surpassed American investor Warren Buffett as the world's second richest person with an estimated net worth of billion compared with Buffett's billion.

On 10 March 2010, Forbes reported that Slim Helu had overtaken Gates as the world's richest person, with a net worth of billion.

In March 2011, Forbes stated that Slim Helu had maintained his position as the wealthiest person in the world, with his fortune estimated at billion.

In December 2012, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Carlos Slim Helu remained the world's richest person with an estimated net worth of billion.

On 5 March 2013, Forbes stated that Slim Helu was still maintaining his first-place position as the wealthiest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of billion.

On July 15 2014, Forbes announced that Slim Helu had reclaimed the position of the wealthiest person in the world, with a fortune of billion.

Since the early 2000s to the mid-2010s, Slim Helu has been making private real estate investments internationally beyond Mexico, particularly in Spain and the United States.

In May 2014, Slim Helu opened Inbursa Aquarium, Latin America's largest aquarium.

Slim Helu owns the Duke Seamans mansion, a 1901 beaux arts house on 5th Avenue in New York City, which he bought for $44 million in 2010.

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Slim Helu owns a second mansion in New York City at 10 West 56th Street, which he bought in 2011 for million.

In March 2015, Slim Helu began examining Spain as a potential investment destination, by purchasing cheap properties in Spain's real estate sector at rock-bottom prices in its ailing economy.

Slim Helu was criticized by the Dutch minister of economic affairs, Henk Kamp, in 2013 for attempting to expand his telecommunications empire beyond the Americas by America Movil's buy-out offer to KPN, a Dutch landline and mobile telecommunications operator.

Kamp reiterated his criticisms of Slim Helu stating: "an acquisition of KPN by a 'foreign company' could have consequences for the Netherlands' national security".

Slim Helu has been slowly decreasing his holdings since he was forced to withdraw a 7.

Slim Helu has said he has no interest in becoming the world's richest person.

In 2016, then Presidential candidate and eventual 45th President of the United States Donald Trump accused Slim Helu of being involved in editorial articles critical of him published in The New York Times during his 2016 Presidential campaign.

Slim Helu has been publicly skeptical of The Giving Pledge by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett giving away at least half of their fortunes.

In 1995, Slim Helu established Fundacion Telmex, a broad-ranging philanthropic foundation, which as he announced in 2007 had been provided with an asset base of billion to establish Carso Institutes for Health, Sports and Education.

Together with Fundacion Carlos Slim Helu, Telmex announced in 2008 that it was to invest more than million in Mexican sports programs, from grass-roots level to Olympic standard.

Slim Helu has been Chair of the Council for the Restoration of the Historic Downtown of Mexico City since 2001.

The complex, whose construction was funded by Slim Helu, includes an evangelization center, museum, columbarium, health center, and market.