What the company or idea is
Carlos Slim Helú was born in Mexico City on 28 January 1940. He is a Mexican businessman, investor and philanthropist whose conglomerate, Grupo Carso, spans industries from manufacturing and mining to retail, media and finance. Forbes ranked him the richest person in the world from 2010 to 2013. The core of his fortune is telecommunications: América Móvil, the mobile carrier Telcel and the landline operator Telmex. His father taught him to read financial statements, and he keeps a personal ledger of every transaction he has made.
How it actually makes money
The article describes a simple method: buy a business, keep it for its cash flow or sell the stake later at a profit, then reinvest the capital in the next one. In the early 1980s the cash flow of a Mexican tobacco distributor, Cigatam, helped finance many acquisitions. The core of the fortune is telecom. Slim, with France Télécom and Southwestern Bell, bought Telmex from the government in 1990 during privatisation, and its cash flow became the bulk of his fortune. By 2006 Telmex ran 90 percent of Mexico’s phone lines and Telcel almost 80 percent of its cellphones. His financial group, Inbursa, sells insurance and manages funds and pensions.
What works
Timing and structure. In 1982, with banks struggling and foreign investors retreating, he bought heavily at depressed valuations. His purchases through that downturn included a copper manufacturer, Mexico’s largest tire maker and a hotel chain, and he also became the majority shareholder of Sanborn Hermanos. The article says the web of companies within Grupo Carso lets him hold stakes across many industries, making the whole nearly recession-proof if one sector underperforms. Exits paid too: in 2007 he sold a large part of Cigatam to Philip Morris for US$1.1 billion and all of Porcelanite for US$800 million.
What does not
The foreign push was uneven. In 2003 he bought stakes in US retailers including CompUSA, and in 2007 Grupo Carso said the remaining 103 CompUSA stores would be liquidated or sold. His 2013 bid of 7.2 billion euros for the Dutch carrier KPN collapsed after political intervention. At home, critics call him a monopolist, note that Telmex charges among the highest usage fees in the world according to the OECD, and cite an economist who argues that the dominance of his conglomerates stops smaller companies from growing.
What to take from it
Three things stand out. Buy when valuations are depressed. Hold for cash flow and sell stakes later at a gain. Notice how much of the result came from a state asset moving into private hands: the article credits privatisation for his windfall in the early 1990s, and a 2024 news story, citing the book Why Nations Fail, said his fortune came from a telecom monopoly built on closeness to government rather than innovation. Asked to explain a sudden jump in his wealth, Slim said, “The stock market goes up … and down.”
Is it worth your time
Yes, if you want to see how a conglomerate is put together from distressed purchases, patient cash flow and one dominant asset, and what the criticism of that model looks like. The article puts his net worth at US$123 billion in the September 2026 Bloomberg ranking but gives no company accounts, so look elsewhere for margins.
