cnn
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Here's a look at the life of Mexico's richest man, businessman and investor, Carlos Slim.
Birthdate: January 28, 1940
Place of birth: Mexico City, Mexico
Birth name: Carlos Slim Helu
Father: Julián Slim Haddad, real estate investor
Mother: Linda Helú Atta
Marriage: Soumaya Domit Gemayel (1966-1999, his death)
Children: Carlos, Marco Antonio, Patrick, Soumaya, Vanessa, Johanna
Education: National Autonomous University of Mexico, 1961
Nicknamed “The Engineer”.
His father was a Lebanese immigrant, as were his maternal grandparents.
His father died when he was 13 years old.
I bought shares of the National Bank of Mexico at 12.
He is a great baseball fan.
It has been criticized for monopolizing markets in Mexico.
He founded the Telmex Foundation, Carlos Slim Foundation and the Historical Center Foundation of Mexico City.
1965 – Acquires a bottling company, Jarritos del Sur, and establishes a brokerage house, Inversora Bursatil. He also establishes real estate, construction and mining companies.
January 1966 – He establishes his real estate company, Inmobiliaria Carso.
1970s-1980s – It expands and diversifies its participations in the real estate, industrial and commercial sectors.
1980 – Slim combines all his business interests into Grupo Galas, today known as Grupo Carso.
1982 – During the financial crisis in Mexico, Grupo Carso acquires the majority stake in dozens of companies.
1990 – Grupo Carso goes public and its companies merge. Grupo Carso acquires Telmex, the recently denationalized telecommunications monopoly, in a venture with Southwestern Bell, France Telecom and several Mexican investors. Carso Global Telecom is created as a Telmex holding company. Slim also acquires the mobile telecommunications company Radiomovil Dipsa, a subsidiary of Telmex, and renames it Telcel.
1994 – He founded the Soumaya Museum, a non-profit art museum named after his wife.
March 14, 1994 – Slim's cousin, financier Harp Helu, is kidnapped. The billionaire is freed in June after the family agrees to pay an undisclosed amount, which may have been a ransom of nearly $30 million.
nineteen ninety five – Founded the Telmex Foundation.
nineteen ninety six – Grupo Carso is split into Carso Global Telecom, Grupo Carso and Invercorporacion.
1997 – Purchases the Mexican subsidiary of Sears Roebuck. Telmex USA begins operations.
1997 – Slim undergoes successful open heart surgery. He begins to hand over the daily operations of his business to his children.
2000 – Acquires the weakened CompUSA for almost $800 million.
2005 – After acquiring a 13% stake in MCI, Slim sells his stake to Verizon Communications Corp. for $1.1 billion.
March 2007 – Slim pledges $6 billion to his charitable foundations.
May 2007 – He founded the Carlos Slim Health Institute, a non-profit organization that aims to make healthcare affordable and accessible in Latin America, through his Carlos Slim Foundation.
December 2007 – Unable to turn around CompUSA, Slim sells it to a restructuring company. The retailer closes most of its stores and sells the rest of its assets.
2008-2009 – It buys a nearly 7% stake in the New York Times and invests $250 million in the company through a six-year loan agreement.
2011 – A new installation of the Soumaya Museum opens in Mexico City. The museum is designed by Slim's son-in-law, architect Fernando Romero.
July 2014 – While attending a business conference, Slim proposes the idea of an 11-hour-a-day, 33-hour work week. He says the three-day work week would improve quality of life.
January 14, 2015 – Slim exercises warrants to acquire 16 million more shares of the New York Times, making him the company's largest individual shareholder, with almost a 17% stake.
June 2015 – Slim's television production studio, Ora TV, is abandoning a project partnership with US President Donald Trump after Trump said at his presidential campaign launch that some Mexicans crossing the border into the United States are “rapists.”
January 18, 2017 – Slim announces plans to launch Nuestra Visión, a television channel aimed at Mexicans living in the United States.
January 27, 2017 – Slim offers to help Mexico negotiate with Trump after seeing the national response that Mexico has had to the new US government. The billionaire praises Trump's negotiating skills and says that the American president wants to “transform the United States” and there will be “positive” changes for those in Mexico.
October 2018 – Mexico's president-elect Andrés Manuel says he will halt construction of Mexico City's partially built new airport. Slim is one of the main investors in the $13 billion project, which was rejected in a referendum.
April 30, 2020 – Slim wins a contract to build part of the government's Mayan Train, an ambitious infrastructure project that will connect cities in five southeastern states.
January 2021 – Slim is briefly hospitalized after testing positive for Covid-19.
June 30, 2021 – According to Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Slim will pay all the costs necessary to rebuild the elevated section of the Mexico City metro, which left 26 dead after its collapse in May.
September 2022 – While speaking at a Fundación Telmex Telcel scholarship event in Mexico, he talks about ways to combat unemployment, especially among young people. His suggestions include establishing a three-day work week and raising the retirement age to 75.
