Carlos Slim Helú

The richest businessman in Mexico and at certain point the richest man in the world. He has investments in almost all sectors of the Mexican economy: telecommunications, restaurants, tobacco production, hotels, construction sector, he even has shares in the newspaper The New York Times. His wealth reached 64 billion dollars, according to Forbes and its yearly index on the worlds't billionaires.

Slim has telecommunication companies all over Mexico, Latin America, United States and Canada. He is very important for understanding the communication media in Mexico. Slim is the owner of the biggest mobile phone company (Telcel), as well as of the most prestigious company for landline telephony (Telmex). Since more than 25 years ago he also owns Grupo Carso, one of the principal winners of public tenders for projects for telecommunication infrastructure.

His entrance in the media world started in 1990 when he bought from the Mexican state Teléfonos de México (Telmex), which has invested more than 34 billions of Mexican pesos in telecommunications infrastructure in the country. At that time, he was given seven-year concession with no competitors in the sector in order to upgrade the network. However, this lasted much longer than previously agreed, since any new player who wanted to enter the market had to pay very high fees for using Telmex's infrastructure.

One presidential reform in the telecommunications sector from 2014 tried to stop Slim's monopoly by pointing out that many of his companies, among them Telmex, act as predominant economic actors. The magnate did not quit the battle and at the end of 2017 he won again the concession when the Federal Institute of Telecommunications allowed for Slim's conglomerate América Móvil to charge his rivals for using his telecommunication network.

Today Slim is missing one thing: to enter the pay-TV market. The problem is that the concession from 1990 does not allow Telmex to offer additional services besides telephony and Internet. Recently OECD recommended the entrance of América Móvil in this market dominated by Televisa.

With Lebanese origin, Slim studied civil engineering at the UNAM and started with investments and management of big companies since he was very young. In 1965, when he was 25, he founded the real estate company Carso; in the 1980s, Grupo Carso (reals estate industry) starts investing and purchasing companies such as Bimex and Reynolds Aluminio. In 1967 he also founded Promotora del Hogar S.A. for household marketing, and slowly his wealth increases.

He purchases and runs Mina el Volcán SSG Inmobiliaria S.A. and in 1969 he creates three new companies: Bienes Raíces Mexicanos S.A., Nacional de Arrendamientos and Investor Mentor Mexicana. In 1984 he buys Bimex, S.A. and 40% of British American Tobacco, among else. He also buys Seguros de México, today called Seguros Inbursa, and in addition he founded grupo Financiero Inbursa. In 1985, into his group also join: Sanborns, Dennys, Paper factory Loreto y Peña Pobre, Pamosa, 50% of Hersheys and Artes Gráficas Unidas.

In present times, Slim also has important investments in the communication media. In 2008 he became the biggest individual shareholder in The New York Times, but at the end of 2017 he reduced his participation from 17 to 8 percent. Besides that, at the beginning of the 2017, he launched a TV channel in the United States - Nuestra Visión, aimed at the Mexican audience in that country.

Currently he holds the following positions: President of the Managing Board of Impulsora del Desarrollo y el Empleo en América Latina, S.A.B de C.V. (IDEAL), President of Fundación Telmex, A.C., President of Fundación Carlos Slim, A.C., President of the Executive Committee of the Advisory Board for the Restoration of the Historical Center of Mexico City, as well as President of Fundación del Centro Histórico, A.C.