The wealth of Carlos Slim, the richest man in Mexico, exceeds $100 billion for the first time

Carlos Slim has crossed a new frontier. The wealth of Mexico’s richest man, 83 years old, exceeded $100 billion for the first time in his life. The telecommunications mogul has benefited from the context of the superpeso, which has seen the Mexican currency rise by about 14% against the dollar this year. Slim earned about $27 billion in 2023, according to the Billionaires Index. Bloomberg.

Slim is the richest citizen in Mexico and Latin America. Forbes magazine ranked him this year as the eighth richest person in the world Your annual listWhich he drove 12 years ago. His $100 billion fortune comes from several multinational companies, such as the main company, America Movil. And also from Grupo Carso, a huge conglomerate of commercial, industrial, telecommunications or consumer companies (such as the Sanborns chain, one of the most famous restaurants in the country), whose shares rose 109% in 2023 and achieved the best performance in Mexico. Reference indicator.

Over the past year, Slim also acquired 49.9% of Zama, a huge oil company that drills for crude oil in a huge field in the Gulf of Mexico. One of his other companies, Spain’s FCC, raised $1.1 billion by selling a 25% stake to Canadian pension company CPPIB. The businessman has diversified his business over the years, although the telecommunications sector is his favourite. It is the main shareholder in América Móvil and Grupo Carso, but its businesses also extend to construction, finance and mining. In Spain, the Mexican businessman is the first shareholder of FCC and Realia. He is also a contributor to PRISA, the publishing group of this newspaper.

Slim, in addition to being the richest businessman in Mexico, is a person with great political influence thanks to his enormous capital and his closeness to the current head of government, Andres Manuel López Obrador. Often, the Mexican state becomes one of its clients, whether in public works or disaster management. In the 1990s, when President Carlos Salinas de Gortari privatized Telmex, the then state telecommunications company, Slim bought it through Grupo Carso. Today, part of América Móvil, the company has become one of the most important telecommunications companies in the world.

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