Who is Carlos Slim Helu? – Biography

A Mexican of Lebanese origin, he has held the title of the richest man in the world for four consecutive years. It is difficult to spend a day in Mexico without paying him some money, as his huge empire includes the Anbursa Bank, several of the most famous major retail stores in Mexico, major telecommunications companies, hotels, and restaurants.

Birth and upbringing: Carlos Slim Helu, known as “Carlos Slim”, was born on January 28, 194,0 in Mexico City, to Mexican parents of Lebanese origin. His father, Youssef Slim, was a Maronite Christian from Jezzine, south of Beirut, and his mother, Linda Helu, was the daughter of one of the richest Lebanese men in Mexico.

His father opened a store in Mexico called “Star of the East” and married Linda Helou, who was famous for establishing the first Lebanese newspaper in Mexico. He had six children with her, Carlos Slim being the fifth.

Education and training: He studied engineering at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and graduated as an engineer in 1961 at the age of 26. The most important education he learned was from his father, from whom he received his first lessons in commerce.

 Jobs and responsibilities: He was not preoccupied with government jobs, as he started working alongside his father when he was eight years old.

Business and Financial Experience: He started his business career early, selling drinks and snacks to his family members when he was ten years old. In his youth, he kept books in which he recorded everything he earned and spent, and he bought a government savings bond from which he learned valuable lessons about compound interest.

In the mid-1970s, he founded two companies, one in construction and the other in the stock market. He then bought a factory to produce cigarette boxes. In the 1980s, he owned the first tobacco company in Mexico and became head of the largest insurance company and vice president of the stock market.

He built huge investments by snapping up struggling companies at less than their true value and using the money he made to buy more. This “hobby”, which he learned from his father, enabled him to buy a cigarette company, a Sanborns department store and cafe, a mining management company, and a cable and tire company.

He founded the real estate company Grupo Carso, which is made up of several companies, a bank, and a stock brokerage firm known as Inbursa. He also bought a stake in the New York Times when the stock price fell, and bought the assets of AT&T’s Latin American operation for $10 billion.

But the turning point in his career, and the most important station in his rise, was in 1990, when he and his partners bought the government telephone company “Telmex” for $1.7 billion, and turned it into a money-making jewel.

He created América Móvil and expanded it through acquisitions to become the fourth-largest wireless services company in the world.

As a result of this success, he rose to the top and occupied advanced positions on the American Forbes magazine’s list of the world’s richest people. He retained the title of the richest man in the world for four years (2010-2013) and was ranked second in 2008 and 2014, while he was third in 2006, 2007 and 2009.

Despite his great wealth, he has lived in the same house for about 40 years, drives an old Mercedes, but it is armored and followed by bodyguards and eschews private jets, yachts, and other luxuries that Mexico’s elite demand.

He has helped fight poverty, illiteracy,y and poor health care in Latin America, but he has never announced his intention to allocate large amounts of his wealth to a charity like Gates or billionaire Warren Buffett, and he believes that businessmen do more good when they create jobs and wealth through investment.