PROFILE: Carlos Slim, the king of billionaires

By Andrea Sosa Cabrios Mar 10, 2010, 23:16 GMT

Mexico City - Carlos Slim got his first cheque book at age 12, and he has since built an empire. Now, at 70, he has formally become the world's richest man, according to Forbes magazine.

The son of a Lebanese immigrant who arrived in Mexico in 1902, Slim owns the telecommunications company Telefonos de Mexico (Telmex) and the mobile phone operator America Movil, the department store firm Grupo Sanborns and many other companies brought together into the Carso Group, which employs around 210,000 people in Mexico.

Although he has by now left the management of most of his companies in the hands of his children and children-in-law, Slim remains active in strategy for business expansion, in philanthropy, in the construction of roads and buildings, and in acquiring a stake in The New York Times, among others.

According to Slim's official biography, his father, Don Julian, a successful tradesman who opened the haberdasher's shop La Estrella de Oriente (The Eastern Star) in the historic centre of Mexico City, taught him to mind his money from an early age.

The patriarch is said to have presented each of his six children with a bankbook, and to have taught them to write down the income and expenditures that they had as children.

Several of the precepts by which Slim's father lived are now corporate principles at the Carso Group.

'Firm and patient optimism always bears fruit,' one such principle says. 'All times are good for those who know how to work and have the tools to do it,' says another.

'Our premise is and always has been to bear in mind that we leave with nothing at all, that we can only do things while we are alive and that a businessman is a creator of wealth that he manages temporarily,' the last principle says.

For now, Slim has plenty of wealth to manage: 53.5 billion dollars in assets, according to Forbes magazine. He overtook Microsoft founder Bill Gates, worth 53 billion dollars at the top of the magazine's list of richest people.

Slim, a civil engineer, has built a reputation for himself as a man capable of turning troubled firms into success stories and of seeking out business opportunities, although competitors have accused him of monopolistic practices in the telecommunications market.

His fortune got a major boost in 1982 with the privatization of Telmex by the government of then-president Carlos Salinas. Critics have said that conditions illegitimately favoured Slim, although the communications tycoon has always denied the allegations with great vehemence.

Telmex currently dominates the fixed phone and Internet access markets in Mexico.

Over the past two years, Slim's investments have focused on Latin America, where his group is present in 18 countries through America Movil and through investment in infrastructure.

A widower and a father of six children, he was married to fellow Lebanese-Mexican Soumaya Domit for over three decades, until her death in 1999. The combination of the names Carlos and Soumaya led to the name Carso.

Slim, who dislikes ostentation and likes to keep his life simple, also has several foundations and organizations devoted to helping the most vulnerable sectors of society. The baseball fanatic also works to promote culture and sports.

'How does it feel to be the richest man in the world within a country with 50 million poor?' a reporter once asked him.

Slim, who was born in Mexico City and continues to live there, was visibly annoyed.

'I will not take anything away when I die,' he said. 'From my position as a businessman I have always felt great responsibility for my country and I have acted accordingly.'

'My challenge in life is to improve conditions in health, education and to generate jobs,' Slim noted.