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Gates 'knocked off' richest man perch
July 3, 2007 - 2:10PM
Nothing lean about Carlos Slim's earnings ... $US67.8 billion.
Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim is the world's richest man, worth an estimated $US67.8 billion, after overtaking Microsoft founder Bill Gates, according to a respected tracker of Mexican financial wealth.
A 27 per cent surge in the share price of America Movil, Latin America's largest cell phone operator controlled by Slim, from March to June made him close to $8.6 billion wealthier than Gates, said Eduardo Garcia in Sentido Comun, the online financial publication he founded.
Garcia estimated that Gates was worth $59.2 billion.
Forbes magazine reported in April that Slim had overtaken billionaire investor Warren Buffett for the No. 2 spot in the world's richest stakes but was still behind Gates.
Mexico has a huge rich-poor divide, with a tiny elite holding most of the country's wealth and around half the population living on less than $5 a day.
Forbes bumped up Slim because gains from his holding company Carso and fixed-line telecom Telmex added to the Mexican's fortune while shares of Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc fell in the same period.
Three months ago, Sentido Comun's Garcia begged to differ with Forbes and calculated Slim's wealth as more than Gates' -- but only by a whisker. Now he says there is no doubt whose fortune is bigger at current share values.
"When I put Slim ahead three months ago Forbes bumped him up to second place (in world rankings) a few days later," Garcia, also the publication's editor-in-chief, said. "Let's see if the same happens again."
Spokespeople at Forbes magazine were not immediately available for comment.
Garcia, who uses Forbes' calculations for U.S. billionaires' wealth, says the 5.7 per cent increase in Microsoft share prices in the second quarter is no match for the sharp rise in valuations of Slim's companies.
Shares of Telmex in the second quarter rose 11 percent and Slim's bank, Inbursa, saw its stock advance 20 percent.
Garcia's Sentido Comun, which translates as "common sense," reckons Slim and his family own a fortune equivalent to 8 per cent of Mexico's gross domestic product.
For Gates to be worth 8 percent of the U.S. economy, his fortune would have to grow to more than $13 trillion, 17 times his current wealth, according to Sentido Comun.
Slim, known for his Midas touch in turning around struggling businesses and turning them into profit-making machines, told Reuters in an interview this year he was not in the habit of calculating his fortune on a regular basis.
Slim and his chief spokesman Arturo Elias Ayub were not immediately available for comment.
Reuters
July 3, 2007 - 2:10PM
Nothing lean about Carlos Slim's earnings ... $US67.8 billion.
Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim is the world's richest man, worth an estimated $US67.8 billion, after overtaking Microsoft founder Bill Gates, according to a respected tracker of Mexican financial wealth.
A 27 per cent surge in the share price of America Movil, Latin America's largest cell phone operator controlled by Slim, from March to June made him close to $8.6 billion wealthier than Gates, said Eduardo Garcia in Sentido Comun, the online financial publication he founded.
Garcia estimated that Gates was worth $59.2 billion.
Forbes magazine reported in April that Slim had overtaken billionaire investor Warren Buffett for the No. 2 spot in the world's richest stakes but was still behind Gates.
Mexico has a huge rich-poor divide, with a tiny elite holding most of the country's wealth and around half the population living on less than $5 a day.
Forbes bumped up Slim because gains from his holding company Carso and fixed-line telecom Telmex added to the Mexican's fortune while shares of Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc fell in the same period.
Three months ago, Sentido Comun's Garcia begged to differ with Forbes and calculated Slim's wealth as more than Gates' -- but only by a whisker. Now he says there is no doubt whose fortune is bigger at current share values.
"When I put Slim ahead three months ago Forbes bumped him up to second place (in world rankings) a few days later," Garcia, also the publication's editor-in-chief, said. "Let's see if the same happens again."
Spokespeople at Forbes magazine were not immediately available for comment.
Garcia, who uses Forbes' calculations for U.S. billionaires' wealth, says the 5.7 per cent increase in Microsoft share prices in the second quarter is no match for the sharp rise in valuations of Slim's companies.
Shares of Telmex in the second quarter rose 11 percent and Slim's bank, Inbursa, saw its stock advance 20 percent.
Garcia's Sentido Comun, which translates as "common sense," reckons Slim and his family own a fortune equivalent to 8 per cent of Mexico's gross domestic product.
For Gates to be worth 8 percent of the U.S. economy, his fortune would have to grow to more than $13 trillion, 17 times his current wealth, according to Sentido Comun.
Slim, known for his Midas touch in turning around struggling businesses and turning them into profit-making machines, told Reuters in an interview this year he was not in the habit of calculating his fortune on a regular basis.
Slim and his chief spokesman Arturo Elias Ayub were not immediately available for comment.
Reuters
A Forbes article from a few months ago
Carlos Slim Helu Now World's Second-Richest Man
For seven years Warren Buffett, the so-called Oracle of Omaha, ranked just behind his good friend and bridge partner Bill Gates as the world's second-richest man. That era is over, at least temporarily. On March 29, Mexican telecom titan Carlos Slim Helú quietly slipped past the value investor. As of market close today, Slim is worth $53.1 billion, compared with Buffett's $52.4 billion. He is also breathtakingly close to passing Gates, currently worth $56.0 billion. Gates, who co-founded Microsoft in 1975, has been the world’s richest man for a record 13 years.
Slim added $4 billion to his fortune in the two months since we locked in net worths for our annual billionaires rankings. His second-largest holding, Carso Global Telecom (other-otc: CGTVY - news - people ), which controls ubiquitous fixed-line operator Telmex, has jumped 15% in that time. His biggest holding, wireless operator America Movil (nyse: AMX - news - people ), is up 4% since it announced earlier this month that it was in talks to buy a third of Olimpia, the holding company that controls Telecom Italia (nyse: TI - news - people ). By contrast, Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (nyse: BRKA - news - people ) shares have slipped slightly.
Slim's latest gains continue an amazing run for the 67-year-old tycoon. He has added $23 billion to his fortune over the last 14 months. The surge has been fueled largely by a strong Mexican economy and a stock market that jumped 49% in 2006.
The Mexican magnate's rising fortune has caused a good deal of controversy because it has been amassed in a nation where per capita income is less than $6,800 a year and half the population lives in poverty. Critics claim he is a monopolist, pointing to Telmex’s control of 90% of the Mexican landline telephone market. Slim's wealth is the equivalent of roughly 7% of Mexico's annual economic output. If Gates had a similar proportion in the U.S., he'd be worth $874 billion.
Slim says he is unfazed by the criticism. "When you live for others' opinions, you are dead. I don't want to live thinking about how I'll be remembered,” he said earlier this year. He also claims indifference about his ranking and says he has no interest in becoming the world's richest person. When asked to explain his sudden increase in wealth at a press conference soon after our annual billionaire rankings were published, he reportedly said, "The stock market goes up ... and down," and noted that his fortune could quickly drop.
These days, Slim insists his biggest concern is using his wealth to help solve Mexico's social ills. A year ago he infused one of his foundations, which had been long neglected, with $1.8 billion. In the fall he pledged to donate up to $10 billion to health and education programs over the next four years. Still, he poked fun at his American counterparts' much-ballyhooed philanthropic efforts at a recent press conference. "Poverty isn’t solved with donations," he reportedly said, adding that building businesses often does more for society than "going around like Santa Claus."
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