In the world, as of right now, there are only 1.210 people with fortunes that amount to over 1 billion dollars. Perched at the top, sits Carlos Slim Helu, a Mexican businessman who, according to the most prestigious financial publications, gets $ 30 million daily earnings. Thusly he is not only the richest, but one of the six most influential men on the planet.
No millionaire has been so methodical as Carlos Slim. His fame and power have transcended borders, which is why he has earned the nicknames «The Greatest Tycoon» and “King Midas” in America. But his influence doesn’t stop at this continent. In Japan, Slim is seen as a example to follow, and they refer to him as “Taikun” - An extremely rich and powerful man.
Some have even called him «Mr. Sell» for his influence in the stock market. In the jargon of the stock exchange a popular phrase says «Sell in May and go away», suggesting to sell in May and stay out of the market until October.
1992 was the first time that Carlos Slim appeared in the elite group of Forbes’ World’s Richest Men list. At the time, 51 years old, Carlos seemed to be a newcomer, however Fortune Magazine as well as The Wall Street Journal, were taking good care and keeping an appreciative eye on Carlos Slim.
Founded in 1917, Forbes is an American magazine with a circulation of several million copies worldwide. Forbes’s List of The Richest in the World began publication in 1987, and soon attracted the spotlight of tabloid media hoping to discover the eccentricities of the truly rich. But beyond the infamous list, Forbes magazine is one of the most trusted information resources for the world’s business leaders. Slim has appeared consistently in this publication since 1991.
As we began the new millennium, in 2001, Carlos Slim stood at 25th place on the Richest People in the World List, with 10,800 million dollars, which increased in 2002 to 11,500 and got his to 17th place on that list. In 2006 Carlos ascended to the podium and joined the club of the three richest in the world alongside Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, with a fortune of 30,000 million dollars. If his fortune were a symphony, and in many ways it is, it was reaching the crescendo, foreshadowing a series of financial moves and decisions that would help it grow exponentially.
He was crowned by Forbes as the richest person in the world in 2011, when his fortune reached, according to the Wall Street Journal, $69 Billion dollars.
According to experts, the reason for the sky rocketing fortune of Carlos Slim was due to the 26.5% growth in shares of America Movil, of which “Mr Sell” owns 33%.
America Movil, considered the largest and in many cases only mobile phone company in Latin America, has a base clientele of 260 million customers. Consolidated in Latin America with a fiber optic network of 290,000 kilometers, making it the largest telecommunications infrastructure in the world.
His power and influence reaches everywhere and in places you might not expect. According to the Securities and Exchange Commission, of U.S. government, Carlos Slim has 8.2% of controlling shares in AT&T, as well as owning 10% share for both the high end store Saks Fifth Avenue as well as the prestigious periodical The New York Times.
As if this weren’t enough, Slim also attained 58.7 million shares (totaling a controlling action of 2%) of BlackRock, one of the titans of international finance, for the total of 10 Billion dollars.
BlackRock is perhaps the main institution for high-risk investment fund management of around the world. To give you an idea of BlackRock’s assets (which include banks, investment funds and corporations) BlackRocks combined assets represent the equivalent of 100% of gross domestic product of China or 11 times more than the GDP of Mexico.
But what significance did this investment have for Slim? Why would he take such a personal stake in a company like BlackRock? Omar Escamilla Rodrigo Haro, specialist in regional integration between Mexico and the United States and professor at the UNAM, theorizes that Slim’s strategy was two fold, both financial and strategic. Among the largest shareholders of BlackRock, are Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Bank of New York Mellon, Morgan Stanley and Citi group.
What is surprising is that it is these banks that, according to Simon Johnson, economist at the International Monetary Fund, are responsible for the economic meltdown of 2007-2008. Some of these entities are still under investigation by the U.S. federal government.
According to Omar Escamilla Rodrigo Haro, one of the most disturbing issues when looking at BlackRock is the network of economic and political interests that are found internally. With a staff that includes former ministers of finance, such as Roger Altman; Former head of the World Bank, Abdlatif Yousef Al-Hamad, who was also Minister of Finance and Planning of Kuwait, former CEOs of banks, like Deryck Maughan of Citigroup, and vice president of companies such as Dennis Dammerman from General Electric. These are just some of the names that make up the network of influence and power within BlackRock which aims to ensure the development of investments and interests for it’s customers around the world.
But there are important elements that can help us understand Slim’s acquisition of the 2% of BlackRock, and these are the assets (common and preferred shares) that the firm has in four of the ten largest mining companies in Latin America, which contributed, in 2009, more than three quarters of the 63.6 Billion generated by all ten companies. Let’s take a quick look at what these mining assets are exactly:
The following data was taken from the Securities and Exchange Commission of the U.S. government, according to reports in 2010:
Iron and Nickel.
Minera Vale, a Brazilian joint venture, and the world’s largest exporter of Iron and second largest of nickel. BlackRock has over 45 billion shares of Vale, with assets valued over $ 1.432 million.
Copper.
The Chilean resort’s Mina La Escondida, the world’s leading producer of copper, is controlled by BHP Billiton. BlackRock has 1,526,898 BHP shares with a value of over $106 million. It also has controlling shares in Southern Peru Cooper, a copper mining company controlled by Grupo Mexico, BlackRock controls 19,643,996 shares worth $690 million dollars.
Gold.
Yanacocha Gold Mine is the largest gold mine in the world, located in Peru and controlled by Newmont Mining Corporation. BlackRock has 40,511,663 shares valued at 1.830 million.
There are two relevant aspects to consider in order to clearly understand Slim’s large investment in BlackRock. The first has to do with the 41% increase of Slim’s company, Grupo Carso’s gains over the previous year, driven by - in large part - his mining and real estate businesses. The second relates to the investment of 4500,000,000 pesos Grupo Carso had made earlier that year towards gold mines in San Francisco and La Concheña, another mine in Ocampo, Chihuahua.
And this isn’t the only time these two giants have done business together. When AMX (America Movil) went under it’s restructuring, part of the 25 Billion spent on the acquisition of Carso Global Telecoms (who control Telmex and Telmex International) came from the sale of 19,877,633 shares of AMX to BlackRock.
What the above shows is the connection and shared interests between the world’s most powerful financial and investment group and one of the world’s greatest monopolists. A relationship in which Mexico’s role becomes that of a transitional economy that allows for the restoration and the profitability of large investment blocks, because while natural resources are extracted, tax levy’s will be allowed to support infrastructure construction and outside investments.
Carlos Slim’s expansion didn’t stop at the Americas. With the goal of truly becoming a man of international influence he expanded across the seas. A great example of his international business roles with his work in Spain.
In 2011, Slim acquired through his company, Carso, more than a million shares of Criteria which went on to become Caixabank. following the agreement of the general meeting of shareholders. La Caixa, controls 81% stake in CaixaBank.
Caixabank is the financial arm of La Caixa, which had been using Slim as an advisor since May of 2010.
The Mexican billionaire became the advisor and shareholder with the second most shares. In 2008 Caixa was considered as the sole partner in the expansion of Mexican company Inbursa. The company invested 1,500 billion Euros (about 2 Billion dollars) to buy 20% stake in Inbursa. La Caixa has presented ambitious growth plans. When local Mexican business all going to Caixa, the chairman of Banco Santander, one of the competitors Caixabank, immediately recognized the vision and ability that Carlos Slim has for business. And going so far as to tell reporters “The exciting thing is to see him find something new. When he invests, then you know he see’s a great business model that won’t fail.”
In 2007, when Carlos Slim was already a worldwide celebrity with about 50 billion dollars and was among the three richest men in the world, there were many questions in the most important business periodicals, asking and wondering about this man.
That led to The Wall Street Journal’s David Luhnow, entrusted with a more comprehensive report, to finally find out just who Slim was and how to explain his wealth rapid and seemingly unstoppable wealth.
David Luhnow wrote in The Wall Street Journal:
How did this Mexican, son of Lebanese immigrants, reach these heights? He did it by assembling monopolies, something similar to what John D. Rockefeller did with the oil refining industry. In the postindustrial world, Slim has built a stronghold around the phone in Mexico and Latin America.
Teléfonos de Mexico (Telmex), Telcel controls 92% of all fixed lines and 73% of mobile phones, respectively. Like Rockefeller at the time, Slim has accumulated so much power that is considered something of a myth in his country, a force as large as the country itself.
It would be impossible to stop Luhnow from making the contrast of how could the world’s riches man live in one of the world’s poorest countries.
To quote a study by the UN: “In the last two years, Slim has won nearly 27 million dollars a day while 20% of the population lives on $ 2 or less a day. “
In response to this and because of his strong belief in community and family, Slim has undertaken and become serious about his philanthropic work. A colorful advertising campaign of its foundations was intended to emphasize the trait of Slim, who was not quoted by name: “Within the Telmex Foundation we have changed the history of hundreds of thousands of children, adults and seniors, with programs that seek out to help solve the core structural problems of Mexico: education, health, nutrition and justice, among the most important.”
He is also a strong advocate of the Clinton Foundation headed by Former US President Bill Clinton, which allocated a fund of $100 million to fight poverty in Latin America.
Not even the fiercest critics of Carlos Slim can question his magic touch as an investor, a real maker of wealth that creates jobs and welfare in any business he chooses to involve himself with and his ability to give back to the community he lives in.
Fortune magazine has compared the Slim profile with that of one of the great American magnates, John D. Rockefeller. CNN and Time magazine executives are among the twenty most influential companies in the world, next to the Brazilian Carlos Ghosn, CEO of Nissan, and Americans Bill Gates of Microsoft. And like Rochefeller his influence and reach for the philanthropic, go global.
Slim is an important collaborator to the World Wildlife Fund, which provides funding to preserve biodiversity of Mexico in seventeen natural areas grouped into six regions. And takes a lot of interest in the preservation of the world’s natural resources. It was no surprise that General Secretary of the United Nations, Ban Ki Moon, invited Carlos Slim to a meeting seeking out his advice on climate changes and fluctuations.
Slim received the “President’s Medal” from George Washington University, for his philanthropic work, joining fellow award winners Mikhail Gorbachev, Walter Cronkite, the Israeli prime minister and Nobel laureate Shimon Peres. His awards are many and his recognitions are deserved, for his tireless efforts and financial support for education and preservation.
Among the awards Slim has won, are the Golden Píate Award from the American Academy of Achievement for his work in education; Entrepreneur of the Year (Latin Trade 2003), the Alliance Award, awarded by Free Trade Alliance, the Hadrian Award, awarded by World Monuments Fund and recognized as the Entrepreneur of the Decade by the Latin Trade in 2004. The merits of Carlos Slim and his international reach are impressive. His awards and acknowledgments range from his home country to Europe and the United States. In fact, in some schools around Japan, Carlos Slim is used as a model example for business and success.
The international media focused a spotlight on all that makes the Mexican tycoon tic, when the multi-billionaire Bill Gates visited Slim to exchange views on the Internet market in Mexico and in the United States. The meeting caused a stir, especially in the U.S. media. The Microsoft founder was visiting Mexico City to receive the Silver Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle Award, the highest honor the Mexican government gives to a foreigner for outstanding service to the country. Gates had donated thousands of computers to public libraries and offered assistance to the Mexican government for the care of diseases like AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and other conditions common in developing countries.
In 1997 Slim rescued the fledgling internet company Prodigy from bankruptcy. Adding a Spanish interface and increasing its number of customers from less than 200,000 to more than three and a half million subscribers.
During the meeting with Slim, Gates addressed the theme of the advertising market on the Internet. They discussed the need to increase the penetration of the services that could provide through their companies. Microsoft and Telmex have an alliance to provide Internet services and advertising in Mexico through the joint forces of Prodigy and MSN.
Slim’s presence in the United States is getting stronger, for example, in late 2008 he acquired 8% of The Bronco Drilling Company for an amount close to $15 million. This company is engaged in the production of oilrigs and has contracts to drill three oil wells in Mexico. The Slim group owns shares in Global Crossing Limited, Office Max, Circuit City, Borders and, as if that weren’t enough, Carso Global Telecom (Telmex), now controls several outlets for telecommunications in the United States, like America Movil, which provides wireless services in U.S. territory. It should be added that Carso Global Telecom serves low-income consumers, primarily U.S. Hispanics, who have little or no access to credit.
As in many parts of the world, Carlos Slim is now one of the voices heard and respected in the United States. Of course it has not been without criticism from some of the most influential U.S. media outlets, who have debated the intention of the Mexican billionaire’s big investments.
Buying a stake of most influential American newspaper, The New York Times, put him in the center of the media hurricane. Fame, power, success, authority, everything came together in this operation that although it only represented an cost of $250 million, it was a however, an invaluable investment in making a high social and political impact.
“Many foreigners are buying cheap magnates. America must get used to it … We have all these foreign interests as owners of American companies. It is one of the phenomena that accelerated the recession … By participating in the New York Times, Carlos Slim basically is being projected as a person with great influence in this country, regardless of what he does with his investment,” noted the recognized analyst Armand Peschard-Sverdrup from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC.
“What is clear is that the newspaper needs money and Slim has it, it could help rescue the press - lending daily financing, and giving them time to make the changes necessary for the company to remain profitable,” was the opinion Shannon K. O’Neil, an expert on Latin American at the Council of Foreign Relations in New York City. With that spirit in mind, Janet Robinson, Chief Executive of The New York Times, stated that the capital invested by the Slim’s company, immediately be used to refinance debt and give the newspaper greater financial flexibility.
Long before 2007, the struggling paper was dealing with financial problems. The loss of advertising dollars, triggering cut costs while increasing competition from The Wall Street Journal, bought by media mogul Rupert Murdoch, did not help The New York Times gain back its momentum. But by the end of the second half of 2007, the company reported that its quarterly net profit growth was $118.4 million, or 82 cents per share, compared to the $59.6 million, or 41 cents per share, in the same period last year.
The sale of the media division contributed to a 66 cent earning per share of the company. The New York Times also reported a loss of 29 cents per share on sales of other assets and a loss of 5 cents per share due to accelerated depreciation expense.
“While our second quarter results reflected the weakness displayed in the advertising market, we are moving aggressively towards the development of new products, cost cuts and a rebalancing of our portfolio,” said Janet Robinson of The New York Times.
The truth is that the publishing firm had been hit by a fall in advertising revenues due to the migration of readers to the Internet, as well as the decline of the U.S. housing market and other economic factors. In financial terms, 2008 was very hard year for The Times. The crisis had knocked on the doors of the world’s most influential newspaper. The company had a commitment of over 1,1 Billion dollars of debt and a credit of $400 million maturing in May but had only boxed $46 million dollars in cash. The Times was on its last legs. It was in desperate need of an angel. An angel investor that would give it the cash flow it needed and save a New York institution. A newspaper that, for the first time in its history, had to cut down wording in articles, freeze salaries and sell ads on the front page. Trying to solve their financial problems, the Times’ owners sough desperately to sell 19 of the 52 floors of the historic New York Times building in Manhattan. Proceeds from the sale would be used to pay part of their debts. Other assets offered for sales were the baseball team Boston Red Sox and the Boston Globe. The situation at The New York Times became unsustainable, due to the 70% fall in its share price in April 2008.
Enter Carlos Slim. To the rescue. Carlos entered into agreements with the struggling paper and through two of Carlos’s companies, Banco Inbursa and Inmobiliaria Carso, he invested $250 million into The New York Times.
The deal was the purchase of 9.1 million shares for a period of six years with guarantees that they are convertible into common shares. The notes carry an interest rate of 14%, of which 11% is payable in cash and 3% in additional bonds. In principle Slim gets 6.4% of the shares.
Based on the terms of the agreement, Slim will not be represented on the board of The New York Times, nor will he have special voting rights. But when exercising warrants, he would have 17% of the common shares of the company, making him the majority shareholder, although the company will remain in control of the owners, the Ochs-Sulzberger family, who have 19% of the company shares and special rights vote.
In late February 2009, according to documentation submitted by The New York Times Company to The Exchange Commission and U.S. Securities, Carlos Slim’s companies increased their share from 6.4 to 7% of the capital, through multiple actions that rounded off to an added expense of $3.7 million for Inmobiliaria Carso.
Slim, in an interview with The New Yorker, reported that his investment in The New York Times was not motivated by interest in the contents of the medium, but in the communication channels that transmit such content, such as television, internet and mobile phones.
Nevertheless, the chairman of The New York Times Company, Arthur Sulzberger, praised Slim as “loyal to the Times,” in an article published on the website of the newspaper that was part “The 100 Most Influential People of 2009”
“While it would have been a good idea my colleagues and myself to have spent more time with him, it was obvious from the moment we met, that Slim was truly loyal to the Times … Slim is a very astute businessman who understands big business and shows a deep understanding of the role that news, information and education play in our global society.“
Another example of Carlos Slim’s relationship with news media came with the purchase of 1% of the shares of London’s The Independent, a newspaper published by Independent News and Media (INM). The investment was for an estimated amount of $18 million Euros and led to much speculation.
For years the main shareholders of The Independent have been deadlocked in conflict. Sir Anthony O’Reilly and his partner Denis O’Brien have prolonged a fierce dispute over control of the newspaper. The O’Reilly family controls 28% of the INM, which controls not only The Independent and The Telegraph but also a slew of other newspapers in Ireland, Australia and South Africa. While O’Brien owns 20% of INM’s shares. The English media speculated about the reasons Carlos Slim had to acquire the shares in The Independent. It was assumed that there would be a negotiation with Denis O’Brien, owner of Di-gicel, considered the leading mobile operator in the Caribbean, and Slim competitor in that region.
But amid the conflicts between partners at INM, shares of the company who published The Independent depreciated by 85%. The shares previously worth 4 Euros fell nearly to less than two us. Dollars in the London Stock Exchange between May 2008 and June 2009.
Therefore, the Mexican businessman admitted that investment in that newspaper “Was a wrong decision.” It’s obvious that Slim is unwilling to play the part of Citizen Kane, as most other big media moguls tend to do. Ted Turner, the controversial Rupert Murdoch, Anthony O’Reilly and Denis O’Brien, who may crave to be as powerful the great William Randolph Hearst was in his time. Unlike Hearst’s Napoleonic desire for power, it is the challenge of the years to come for Carlos Slim to create real capitol, both physical and human, in Latin America. To contribute, to the extent of the possibilities allowed to him through his many enterprises, to fight the ravages that poverty and unemployment have left upon the region, to engage and shorten the distance between the poor and the rich of each country and between countries. Perhaps we could find wisdom in an old Chinese proverb that states, “The unwise governments worry about the rich, the wise worry about the poor.” In other words, what good is being at the top of the ship if the wood a the bottom will give, and the boat will sink.
From journalist Diego Fonseca’s book Rastros:
“Who can question the desire of a man who has generated more wealth than dozens of Latin-American presidents? With a personal fortune greater than the sum of the GDP of Costa Rica, Uruguay and Ecuador; and the desire to work to improve conditions for regional economic development, this man has been preparing himself over the last decade to become part of the history books.”
Slim understands the situation facing so many Latin American countries with emerging and struggling economies, desperate for a strong social investment. On this particular he has been quoted to say:
“I think every country in Latin America has its own specific conditions and solutions. A country with a billion people is different from a country with a million. A place with a billion people has a very vast interior economy, which would be the principal focus for me. But like I said, each country has it’s own unique situation and it’s own path for development. But one thing is for certain, they could all learn from China or the South Korea, but specifically learn that they have a very advanced system of education, that goes from learning their traditional alphabet to the intelalphabet (the language of computers). They’re not teaching the A to B to C to D - but instead are teaching the convergence, connectivity and interactivity of modern education. Focusing great efforts towards the education of science, technology and engineering. As the Prime Minister of France, Cardinal Richelieu, said in the first half of the sixteenth century, he said it was necessary to support the mechanical arts. He spoke of mechanical education. I think now it is very important to teach all these aspects, without putting aside the humanity of it all and to create jobs and economic activity, investment and reinvestment.”
Slim’s concern for the future has led to new commitments. He is aware of the enormously daunting task that is the aiding in the development of a grand majority of these underdeveloped countries. Many of which are faced with problems of social and political unrest.
Undeterred, Slim speaks with conviction about the challenges that await his immediate future, aware that he will be in battle twenty-four hours a day: In the morning with U.S. companies, in the afternoon with the Europeans and in the evening with the Asian companies. “My priority is to create the physical and human capital and social change in our countries within Latin America. That’s my challenge.” Says Slim. “This is what I’m more involved with and interested in at this time: health, nutrition, education, health, labor and physical infrastructure. That means new jobs such as airports, ports, roads, highways, power plants, energy, telecommunications, etc..”
Since leaving his heirs to manage the businesses inside and outside of Mexico, Slim has focused himself on facing this challenge. Through foundations and companies that have invested the required millions, into his dream for a unified and advanced Latin America.
“I believe that poverty can not be tackled through handouts. You cannot fight this scourge through tax-deductible donations or social programs. Poverty is faced only with a good education and job opportunities. Employment is the only way to fight poverty. In the past, the issue of poverty was an ethical, moral one, about social justice. Today, in this new civilization, fighting this problem has become a necessity of development. If we don’t stand up to poverty no country will be able to develop. And the best way to do that is through education.
Slim has proposed an alliance of the wealthy to help defeat poverty. A union of the most powerful businessmen in the world taking the first steps to establish a company for financing Latin American development that would involve investors, private banks, stock markets, perhaps development banks and global financial institutions. For Carlos Slim, one of the options for removing Latin America from its backwardness is making more social investment in the regions themselves. Based on this thought, Slim began his new business project in late 2005, with an initial investment of around 8 billion dollars to boost acquisition, management, and the construction of roads, power plants, and everything related to infrastructure development in the countries of the Latin American region. The strategy was to partner with local investors in each of the countries that have a large need for infrastructure development in addition to being be default a significant business ally.
His first steps towards investing back into the regions initially went through his two main companies, America Movil and Telmex, but in 2005, Slim’s companies in Latin America began to diversify and consolidate. It became clear that he has generated so much wealth that the challenge to explore new territories became almost obligatory. America Movil, the pioneering company of Slim’s enterprise, was even named the highest performing technology company in the world by Businessweek in 2007. Beating out companies like Apple, Google, Dell and Microsoft.
Although Telmex is among the ten top ranked Latin American companies with a market value estimated at around 40 billion dollars, America Movil triples Telmex in value. It is a monster that not only operates in most Latin American countries, but also has expanded into the United States and Spain. This company is one of the five largest mobile phone operator in the world with the most number of customers.
But Slim’s investments and companies began to reach far beyond telecommunications. He knew that to help rebuild a country they needed access to their raw materials, innovative technologies and new energy. Slim created Carso Construction (CICSA), a company formed in just two years, yet is as big an organization as the ICA (Ingenieros De Civiles Asociados), a company that took half a century in building it’s ranks and fleshing out its many dimensions. It bears repeating that CICSA did this in only two years.
Other companies that make up part of the Slim group are Swecomex Carso and PC Constructions, two companies specializing in oilrigs and the construction of all types of projects related to new energy. There is also Inbursa Financial Group which amongst it’s many subdivisions we find the The Development Project, a private scientific and technological research fund for studies on infrastructure projects.
There is obviously a lot of work to be done. Many of the poorer countries in Latin America have a big whole to dig themselves out of before any re-building can actually happen. The United Nations Organization for Food and Agriculture (FAO), has gives us this recent poll on the reality in Latin American: 53 million people, basically 10% of the population, live with insufficient access to food, and 10 million children suffer from chronic malnutrition.
The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) has also warned that if nothing is done soon to promote more investment into these countries, it will inevitably lead to a substantial increase in extreme poverty.
Rebeca Grynspan, ECLAC director, proposes that to reverse this situation we need to invest a lot more into education:
“How can we come together and build a common project when we lack the knowledge to do it. We have to begin with re-educating the lesser skilled of our workers, give our educators better tools and have them better equipped. We must see education as an invisible chain that begins in pre-school, flows through primary and secondary school, and ends in university.”
According Rebeca Grynspan only around 50% of workers in Latin America have social benefits. It will take a more integrated social consciousness and participation, a system based on the principles of universality, efficiency and solidarity. One should also take into consideration the added challenge that 25% of the youth in the countries of this region are unemployed and many come from broken homes.
It seems that for this economist, Latin America needs to diversify its markets and its products, strengthen productive chains, and generate added value with emphasis on SMEs, small and medium enterprises must be prepared to be “dotted” to higher levels of efficiency and productivity.
Faced with the reality of Latin America, we can analyze and compare to the situation of other nations that have a higher social stability and stronger educational programs.
The first surprise is that Norway, the country with the highest human development, has a GDP equivalent to less than 30% of Mexico’s GDP, is seventy times less than the United States and five times smaller than that of Brazil. Similar data helps to disprove the myth that only developed countries can achieve great economies and wealth, as we see that among the top ten countries excelling in human development is Iceland, with just a GDP which represents 1.5% of Mexico’s and a figure almost nonexistent compared to U.S. GDP.
Of course comparisons can lead to twisting the truth and usually incurs fallacies, but it’s worth our time to look over some data, for example, a study in Time magazine on Latin America indicates that economic improvement in the twentieth century was even clearer despite the many ups and downs it suffered.
Of course it’s surprising and shocking that we live in the twenty-first century and much of the world’s population is living in poverty, without access to basic goods to ensure their survival (food, medicine, clothing and housing). And although there are different criteria for the definition of poverty, the figures as they stand today, regardless of your definition are truly devastating.
For governments and for investors it is a real challenge to reverse the current situation in Latin America. Carlos Slim’s companies are present throughout the region and in the last decade his companies have invested a total of 80 billion dollars worldwide. It is the business group that has singlehandedly made the most investments in social growth for Latin American countries in the last ten years.