Carlos Slim Helu is the CEO and Chairman of América Móvil and Telmex, the twin colossal telecommunications conglomerates. Carlos Slim Helu, popularly dubbed the “Warren Buffet of Mexico,” was born to Lebanese parents Julián Slim Haddad and Linda Helu in Mexico City. He was the world’s richest person from 2012 to 2013.
It’s fascinating to learn how Carlos Slim came to be one of the world’s wealthiest people. Carlos, the eldest of six children, was introduced to the world of business by their father when he was just around 12 years old. His father taught him a lot about managing a business, including administration and bookkeeping, when he was just a kid. This made him eager to pursue his ambitions. He had always aspired to be a business owner. At the tender age of 11, he began to invest modest sums of money in the financial markets. Carlos was so knowledgeable about the financial markets that he didn’t waste time playing like many other children. Instead, at the tender age of 12, he invested in Mexican bank stocks.
Background and Early Life
As soon as Slim’s father arrived in Mexico from Lebanon, he changed his real name and began doing business in the country. He made a fortune from Mexico’s wealthy real estate industry.
Unfortunately, his father died while he was just 13 years old. However, his father’s counsel helped carry on with business. He was a stockholder in Mexico’s largest bank by the time he was 15. However, Carlos Slim’s first experience with business occurred when he worked as an employee of his father’s business at the age of 17, earning just 200 pesos a week.
At the National Autonomous University of Mexico, Carlos pursued a degree in civil engineering. He also had an interest in economics. As a result, after completing his engineering degree, he moved to Chile and enrolled in economics studies. In spite of having a strong grasp of the financial markets, Carlos finished his education and was a talented student. He began working as a stock broker in Mexico as soon as he finished all his schooling.
With $400,000 in profits from his private investments in 1965, Slim was able to create the stock brokerage firm Inversora Bursátil. The financial foundation for Grupo Carso was also laid by him. He also purchased Jarritos del Sur in 1965. In 1966, he launched a $40 million company, Inmobiliaria Carso. In his early years, Carlos had a profound and extensive understanding of financial transactions that helped him subsequently become one of Mexico’s and the world’s wealthiest individuals.
Carlos, however, was unable to keep his entrepreneurial tendencies under control any longer, and he began to work as a trader. Since then, he has launched a brokerage agency for every industry, from manufacturing to construction to retail and restaurants, honing his business acumen along the way.
Carlos then leveraged his incredible skillset and excellent tactics to grow these businesses. Along with construction, he also dabbled in mining and real estate. Carlos eventually established the parent company, Grupo Galas, in 1976 after he tried his hand at various businesses, including the printing industry.
Carlos began his business in the food, tobacco, copper and aluminum industries with Grupo and then with the Nacrobre group of companies. He became the business mogul he is today because of his strategy of taking one step at a time with great vigor and determination.
Recent Business Career
It was in the 1990s that Carlos made his first venture into the telecom industry, working for South Bell Corporation and France Télécom. Given his keen interest in the field, he was able to persuade the Mexican government to sell him the famed government telecoms business Telmex. Thus, when Mexico privatized its telecommunications market in the early 1990s, Grupo Carso purchased Telmex from the Mexican government and his fortunes exploded. Telmex is a Mexican telecommunications company. The corporation was created in 1947 and has more over 50.000 employees.
Later, he bought shares in several telecommunications firms, including ATL, Techtel, and others. As a result of Carlos Slim’s heart surgery, rumors circulated that he would no longer be in control of the business and that all of his assets would either be liquidated or sold. Unfortunately, this occurred at an extremely critical time in his career life.
Carlos, on the other hand, was far too young to relinquish his business and his ambitions. Despite the obstacles, he regained full strength and regained control of his firm and climbed to the top of the pyramid.
He didn’t just stick to one industry, but branched out into the automotive, cigarette, airline, cement, financial services, hotel, and telecommunications businesses as well. Several years later, more businesses in these industries were either formed or bought. In order to expand his business, he bought stock in a variety of companies.
The Grupo Carso was established as a publicly traded firm in Mexico in 1990, before expanding to other countries. Porcelanite, a tile manufacturing company, was also purchased by Grupo Carso in 1990. Even though he worked tirelessly to expand his firm, he eventually had to accept the fact that he will lose money. With Slim’s near-monopolies, the Mexican government has been trying to rein him in recently. In fact, there was the signing of a bill to increase competition in the telecoms industry by Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto in 2014.
The corporate empire of Carlos Slim, on the other hand, was never curtailed. He even started his own oil company: the Carso Oil & Gas which was the product of his 2015 decision. The assets of the corporation were listed at $230 million. That year, he also invested in the IMatchative, a technology start-up.
It’s worth noting that Carlos Slim is the CEO of America Movil, as well. It is a Mexican telecommunications company with its headquarters in Mexico City, Mexico. It is one of the world’s largest enterprises and the seventh-largest mobile network provider in terms of equity customers. 4 million new wireless customers joined America Movil in 2021’s second quarter. Meanwhile, revenues came in at 253 billion pesos, which was up nominally from the year-earlier quarter.
Today, the real-time estimated net worth of Carlos Slim is $82 billion. According to Bloomberg L.P.’s Bloomberg Billionaires Index, he was the 24th richest person in the world as of April 2021. Indeed, he remains Latin America’s wealthiest man alive. We hope you have been greatly inspired from this business and success story of Carlos Slim Helu.
