by Andre Sanchez

The mexican telecommunications tycoon, Carlos Slim Helu, was born on 28 January 1940 in Mexico City. His father, Yusef Salim migrated to Mexico from Lebanon in 1902, then part of the Ottoman Empire, where he changed his name to Julian Slim Haddad. There he married Linda Helu, the daughter of another lebanese merchant and had six children, the fifth of which was Carlos Slim Helu.

"When you live for others' opinions, you are dead. I don't want to live thinking about how I'll be remembered."  - Carlos Slim Helu

In 1911, Julian started a trade business named "La Estrella del Oriente" (The Star of the Orient) where Carlos worked at the weekends. In 1961 Carlos earned a degree in engineering from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), where he is said to have taught Algebra and Linear Programming.

"I still have my laptop but I haven't used it. I'm a paper man, not electronic." - Carlos Slim Helu

Commenting on his father's real estate investments, at the height of Pancho Villa's revolution, Slim is reported to have said "That was courage, he taught me no matter how bad a crisis gets, Mexico isn't going to disappear, and that if I have confidence in the country, any sound investment will eventually pay off.". He learned from his father the strategy of buying when there is blood on the streets, and used it numerous times to expand his reach into a wide variety of industries. His businesses go from ISPs (Internet Service Provider) to mining to cigarrete manufacturing.

"I think one of the big errors people are making right now is thinking that old-style businesses will be obsolete, when actually they will be an important part of this new civilization. Some retail groups are introducing e-commerce and think that the "bricks" are no longer useful. But they will continue to be important." - Carlos Slim Helu

Thrift marks his charachter, despite his mindboggling wealth. You could say that, coupled with his business acumen, it is the source of his wealth. Many would have squandered their wealth by the time they got a few million to play with, but not Slim. He has few extravagancies, such as cuban cigars and Rodin sculptures, which he has made available to the public in Mexico City's Museo Soumaya, named after his late wife.

"I've always said that the better off you are, the more responsibility you have for helping others. Just as I think it's important to run companies well, with a close eye to the bottom line, I think you have to use your entrepreneurial experience to make corporate philanthropy effective." - Carlos Slim Helu

Slim's most important business decision was his acquisition of Mexico's national telephone company, Telefonos de Mexico (Telmex), in the 1990s wave of privatizations, which gained him great notoriety (not to mention truckloads of money). He acquired it for $1.7 billion, through a partnership with the likes of France Telecom and Southwestern Bell. The company is now worth many tens of billions of dollars, a ROI exceeding 1,000%.

"It's not a question of arriving and putting in a whole new administration, but instead, arriving and "compacting" things as much as possible, reducing management layers. We want as few management layers as possible, so that executives are very close to the operations. We also don't believe in having big corporate infrastructures." - Carlos Slim Helu

In the late 90s, Carlos Slim Helu began to hand over the reins of his business empire to his sons, Carlos Slim Domit,  Patrick Slim Domit and Marco Antonio Slim Domit. This has freed him to take an increasingly active role as a philantropist.

"The key is the Internet. The United States is by far the most advanced country in this new digital culture, so we have to be there. The Internet is the heart of this new civilization, and telecommunications are the nervous system, or circulatory system." - Carlos Slim Helu

In 2002, he was worth $11 billion dollars. In 2005, it was estimated that he was worth $23.8 billion dollars. That grew to $30 billion in 2006, and then $49 billion at the start of 2007. By June of 2007, he was estimated to be worth $67.8 billion dollars, dethroning Bill Gates as the richest man in the world.

A Short Biography of Carlos Slim Helu was originally published at http://www.businessmannow.com