Last time Carlos Slim’s wealth was valued, it summed up to 73,800 million dollars, a bit less than in 2013 due to the decrease in value of his American Mobile SAB stocks.
Having that amount of money means that Carlos Slim could actually buy countries such as the Dominican Republic or Sri Lanka, since their GDP is valued in less than 73,800 million dollars. That also means that Carlos Slim could donate $10,25 dollars to each person now standing on earth.
Carlos Slim was born on January 28th 1940 in Mexico DF. He’s currently known as a Mexican business man from a Lebanese family. In 1941 he finished his degree in Engineering at the University of Mexico and in 1965 he founded “Inversora Bursátil”, which soon became the “Grupo Carso”. For the next 10 years, he also came up with different businesses such as “Promotora del Hogar S.A.”, “Mina el Volcán SGG” and “Inmobiliaria S.A.”. But it was not until 1977 that he decided to buy Apple stocks. Due to the new launch of the iMac, he became one of the richest men on Earth.
The most relevant thing to point out about Carlos Slim is the fact that during the crisis that struck Mexico on the early 80’s, which paralysed its economy due to the multiple capital flights, he still continued to invest in Mexico, buying most of its big businesses and always keeping up the positive spirit in the community so that it could, eventually, come out of the crisis. After that, in 1990, he bought 20% of Telmex and France Telecom, the only mobile and landline telecoms business in Mexico by then. Since 1991 to 2006 Telmex invested more than 30,000 million dollars in Southern America to make a better communication system. In 1997 he bought Prodigy, which provided Internet within the USA. Thanks to his wide business knowledge, he made Prodigy grow and prosper until reaching an agreement with MSN, launching the well-known “Messenger”. He then decided to continue with the established rhythm of investments, and on September 10th 2008, he bought 6,4% of the total assets of the famous newspaper “The New York Times”, for a total of $123 million. Even if his benefic history is not as long and well known as Bill Gates’s, the Carso Foundation also participates in multiple charity events, building high schools, and different places to practice sports and educate the community, giving more than 10 million dollars to help to end up with poverty.
Nowadays, multiple magazines and newspapers discuss the differences between Carlos Slim and Bill Gates, who holds the number 1 position on the rich scale. Nonetheless, Carlos Slim has seen how American Mobile SAP, even if it was one of the most important telecommunication businesses in America, its stock value decreased a 14% due to the new law enforced by the Mexican government that plans to eliminate its domination in telecommunications. On the other hand, Bill Gates’ fortune in Microsoft and Canadian National Railway is increasing exponentially, so, if the wind keeps blowing on the same direction, the difference in fortune between these two rich persons will only increase in Gates side.
http://www.forbes.com/profile/carlos-slim-helu/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Slim
http://www.carlosslim.com/biografia_ing.html
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erincarlyle/2013/05/22/bill-gates-is-worlds-richest-bumps-slim/
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/mexicos-carlos-slim-slips-down-worlds-second-richest-man-n42996
