For as long as I can remember now, William Gates III, has held the number one spot on the world’s some prestigious list. Bill, as he is most commonly known, has held the position in somewhat of a ‘choke-hold’ so-to-speak and he has done this for a sustained period of 16 years. Many have come and tried to remove Mr Gates from his perch and have failed. However, one man in particular has achieved this feat for only the second time since 1995 and his name ladies and gents is Mr Carlos Slim Helu…
So who exactly is Carlos Slim Helu? Well, Mr Carlos Slim is of Lebanese heritage and was born on 28th January 1940. He is the youngest of six children, whose parents were Julian Slim and Linda Helu. He attended the UNAM, otherwise known as the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, where he studied engineering.
The now owner of a plethora of businesses with Telecom being his main, was recently bolstered by the merge of his fixed assets in American Movil- the latter meaning ‘mobile’ in Spanish. This move would allow Mr Slim to move into Latin America’s biggest mobile company. He also own stakes in other profitable sectors as well such as the Bronco Drilling, Independent and Media, Saks, New York Times & Co, and last but not least, he also has a ‘comfortable’ portion of stakes in the financial group that goes by the name, Inbursa. All the above has paved the way for him to bank $18.5 billion in one year which leads to a mind boggling net worth of up to $53.5 billion (which is around £37.5 billion.)
His powerful construction conglomerate has built roads and energy infrastructures throughout much of Latin America. His ‘Impulsora Del Desarrollo y el Empelo en America Latin’, which in Spanish stands for the ‘Promoter of Development in Latin America’ and allows them to oversee the entire construction of the transportation, technology, gas, water, power and real estate throughout the land. However, a key component within that is the transportation of crude oil in which the company produces through the refinement of its explorations and is distributed throughout their offshore oil platforms.
On a personal note, this clearly shows me that as a person, Mr Slim could have easily settled for the second spot but chose not to. Even though the money that he has succumb to, he still seems fairly grounded and I found a tiny bit of evidence that would suggest so in this following statement…
When he was posed to explain by a reporter of his rapid rise in wealth at the press conference for the Forbes Rich List, he simply replied that ‘the stock market can go up…. And goes down. Your fortune could quickly drop’. There lies a hidden message in that answer, one which I feel we all can relate to.
For a complete run-down on the worlds’ top earners, be sure to check out the Forbes Rich List…
YouAre Commenting...