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The son of a Mexico City shopkeeper has become the world's richest man. According to Fortune Magazine, Mexican tycoon1 Carlos Slim is now worth abillion dollars more than Microsoft's Bill Gates. Slim owns Latin America's largest cellphone companyin America Movil . His family holdings represent more than 5% of Mexico's GDP and one third of Mexico's stock exchange. And for more on Slim's rapid rise, let's bring in the person who calculated his net worth for these rankings. And Stephanie Mehta joins us from New York. She is a senior writer at Fortune Magazine. Stephanie, thanks so much for joining us. First of all, for the record, he's worth 58 billion dollars?
58.5 billion dollars in change and that's just based on the public holdings in publicly traded companies that, that Mr Slim has invested in and you know, he probably has large holdings in real estate. There may be money in trusts that we are not aware of. So this is just the public number.
Why do you think that he has been so successfully? Obviously, I read your article, fascinating article. He obviously has a very good mind for detail, he is very mathematical. But part of his success seems to be that he knows how to buy beaten-down assets and turn them around.
That's correct. Todd, I think that there are two keys to Carlos Slim's success. One was that he was a believer in Mexico when nobody else was. He really felt that if he invested in the company during the 1982 devaluation of the peso in the Mexican crisis, then that the country would come back and he was very very smart about that. He, He's done similar things with other investments both in the United States but also in Mexico. Um, there was a time in 1994 where there was a peso crisis in Mexico, the value of his stock in Telmex was very low. He bought back stock, he cut capital spending, he did all the right things and it's paid off. Telmex is one his largest holdings and that was, um, the company from which America Movil was spun2 off. And as you can see from the article, America Movil is his largest holding. It's, er, it contributes about 31 billion dollars to his personal fortune.
Now of course he's a very powerful man, but he's also extremely well politically connected. Of course, at a time, when he bought Mexico's biggest telecom company Period,Well, it was considered at market price with his partners. But the real sweet deal was he had a seven-year monopoly which made other competitors quite outraged3. So it's not all down to luck, is it?
No, it's not all down to luck and I think that if you compare what Carlos Slim has done in Mexico with what American telecommunications companies have done or European telecommunications companies were done, um, have done, there would be people who would look at, at his actions and say, you know, that's very similar to the way savvy4 companies operate in any economy. Um, in the case of Mexico, because um, it was a privatization and because it was done in a way that people felt was, perhaps um, you know, a little bit behind the scenes, they didn't feel like there were a lot of bidders5 and it didn't result a lot of competition. He has been, been open to criticism.
Let's talk about the personality of him because obviously he's a very strong and forceful man although his sons are now basically running the day-to-day operation since he had heart problems. But nevertheless, you know, his headquarters for his wireless6 company are in a tyre factory, a former tyre factory. Um, you also point out that he's very thrifty7.
He's a frugal8 guy, up until a few years ago, his son-in-law told me that he would wear one of those cheap calculator watches on his wrist. The ones that you know would enable him to, to actually do calculations while he was in meetings right, right there on the flight. He's a very thrifty guy, he's a frugal guy, you know, the personality trait that came out strongest in the course of reporting the story, we talked to all of the sons. We really tried to paint a portrait of a family as much as a portrait of an entrepreneur because, you know, in Latin America, um, and, and in many countries including the United States, there is the strong sense of family in the business. And he manages his family, the way he manages his family is almost as interesting as the way he manages his businesses. The family is a very close knit. They provo, present a united front. If there are disagreements among the brothers and his sons-in-law who are also involved in the business, you'll never see it, they, they do an amazing job of presenting a united organic front
Notes:
America Movil: América Móvil is a publicly traded wireless communications company and provides services to over 130 million wireless subscribers in America, primarily in Latin America and the Caribbean.
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1
tycoon
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| n.有钱有势的企业家，大亨 | |
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2
spun
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| v.纺，杜撰，急转身 | |
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3
outraged
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| a.震惊的，义愤填膺的 | |
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4
savvy
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| v.知道，了解；n.理解能力，机智，悟性；adj.有见识的，懂实际知识的，通情达理的 | |
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5
bidders
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| n.出价者，投标人( bidder的名词复数 ) | |
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wireless
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| adj.无线的；n.无线电 | |
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7
thrifty
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| adj.节俭的；兴旺的；健壮的 | |
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8
frugal
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| adj.节俭的，节约的，少量的，微量的 | |
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