Mexico's Slim, No. 2 in Fat City
Telephone Tycoon Rises Into Gates's Shadow

By Frank Ahrens and Sabrina Valle
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, April 13, 2007

A popular saying in Mexico goes like this: You can't get out of bed in the morning without putting money into Carlos Slim's pocket.

Carlos Slim Helú, 67, is el jefe of the Mexican telecommunications industry. He is probably the richest man most Americans have never heard of.

That may soon change. In Forbes magazine's annual ranking of the world's richest, released last month, Slim was third. Since then, Forbes estimates that Slim added $4.1 billion to his fortune, surpassing super-investor Warren E. Buffett.

Now only Microsoft's Bill Gates stands between Slim and global dominance. But even Gates does not loom over the U.S. consumer landscape the way the cigar-loving, fine-living Slim does in Mexico.

With a fortune estimated by Forbes at $53.1 billion and rising, he pushed Buffett ($52.4 billion) down a notch, as shares of Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway have declined slightly since the beginning of the year. Slim is known as the Latin American Buffett and the Mexican Midas for his golden touch. (Buffett is a member of The Washington Post Co.'s board of directors, as is Melinda Gates, Bill Gates's wife.)

Some Fun Facts about Slim, telephone mogul and budding philanthropist, most courtesy of Forbes:

· His wealth is equivalent to about 7 percent of Mexico's entire annual economic output.

· His Carso Global Telecom controls 90 percent of Mexico's telephone land lines.

· By contrast, his América Móvil controls a mere 72 percent of Mexico's cellphone market.

· Additionally, he owns a chain of stores in Mexico called Sanborns that sells everything from CDs to vitamins.

· He is only $3 billion in wealth behind Gates, or, as Forbes put it, "breathtakingly close" to the Microsoft founder. If Móvil's stock continues its meteoric rise, he could pass Gates any minute.

· In March, Slim pledged $450 million for health research but said rich people can do more good by creating jobs and building solid businesses, aiming a gentle jibe at the recent largess of Gates and Buffett: "Our concept is more to accomplish and solve things, rather than giving; that is, not going around like Santa Claus," he said at a news conference in Mexico City.

· "Slim" is not a nickname. In the custom of Spanish-speaking nations, Carlos Slim Helú's name puts his father's surname first, followed by his mother's surname, but he goes by Slim. Though he is not.

How did Slim get so rich? Well, he didn't start poor. As one of the more heavily covered figures in Latin America, Slim's rise and reach have been well chronicled.

Slim's father, Julián Slim Haddad Aglamaz, a Lebanese Christian, came to Mexico City in 1902, fleeing the Ottoman Turks, who controlled Lebanon. He opened a clothing store and built a nice business of it. Carlos Slim was one of six children (and has six children himself).

He gained an engineering degree and used his family's economic base to build his own wealth, through retail and real estate.

His big break came in 1990, when Mexico -- like many Latin American nations -- began privatizing state-owned businesses. But Mexico's privatization of its phone company, Telmex, did not involve breaking it up and allowing numerous investors access to the business.

Instead, a group led by Slim that included France Telecom and Southwestern Bell -- friendly with privatizing Mexican President Carlos Salinas -- won Telmex and gained control of the Mexican phone market.

Unsurprisingly, phone bills shot up. A number of studies have shown that Mexican phone rates have been higher, on average, than those in other Latin American countries, largely thanks to the nation's looser regulatory environment, U.S. telecom lawyers say.

Slim's business, politics and friendships sometimes are difficult to separate. He is courted by Latin American politicians for his ability to sink wealth into investments. When Panamanian President Martín Torrijos could not book a flight to attend the Vatican funeral of Pope John Paul II in 2005, Slim lent him his private jet.

On occasion, Slim likes to summon foreign reporters to his grand office in Mexico City, which features antique European furniture purchased from a Sotheby's auction house.

At one such gathering, Slim was asked by a journalist who recently arrived from Argentina why his phone bills were so much higher in Mexico.

Slim's manner of answering most questions, according to a reporter at the meeting, was to gesture to an assistant -- one of his sons or sons-in-law -- who would then produce a thick report on the topic. Pummeled by a dizzying array of numbers, the Argentine journalist tried again: Why is my phone bill so high? Slim's eventual answer: You're reading your bill wrong.

Slim has numerous personal and business ties to the United States. He and first lady Laura Bush were guests at the 2005 wedding of U.S. ambassador Antonio O. "Tony" Garza Jr. and Corona Beer heiress María Asunción Aramburuzabala Larregui in Mexico.

At one time, Slim was the largest shareholder of the former MCI. He sold his holdings to Verizon Communications for $1.1 billion in 2005. He owns the struggling CompUSA, served on the board of Philip Morris USA parent Altria Group and bought shares in Apple as far back as 1997.

In late March, Slim's Móvil bought Verizon's stake in a Puerto Rican cellphone firm for $1.7 billion. Slim is exploring a joint venture in Italy with AT&T, which also has a stake in Móvil. This year, Móvil passed Brazil's Petrobras as Latin America's biggest company by value.

Slim developed his nose for business early. As a 12-year-old, according to press accounts, he maintained a list of his investments.