Mexico’s telco tycoon Carlos Slim, the world’s richest man, jumped past Americans Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to become the first person from a developing nation to top the list, according to Forbes magazine. The list has long been dominated by Americans and Europeans.
The 70-year-old Slim amassed a $53.5 billion fortune.
The 2010 Forbes list has 1,011 billionaires.
$4.2B for Sys
With their net worth swelling to $4.2 billion, the Sys were 201st on the list, up from 234th last year, when their net worth was at $2.7 billion.
The Sys are at the helm of the Philippines’ largest mall chain SM, which has 36 malls nationwide, and Banco de Oro Unibank. SM Investment, the family’s listed holding company, has expanded into gaming and is set to open a “Las Vegas-style casino complex” near Manila Bay this year.
Tan and his family slipped to 582nd this year, from 522nd last year, even as their net worth increased to $1.7 billion, from $1.4 billion in 2009.
Tan owns the Philippines’ largest cigarette maker Fortune Tobacco, Asia Brewery and Philippine Airlines, as well as mines and banks. He also owns real estate in Hong Kong.
The Sys and the Tans were also the only Filipinos to make it to the 2009 and 2008 Forbes lists of the world’s billionaires. In 2007, the family of Jaime Zobel de Ayala was ranked 349th with a net worth of $2.6 billion.
Slim’s philosophy
The rise of Slim, an immigrant shopkeeper’s son who has bought a $250-million stake in The New York Times, is part of an increased presence on the list of billionaires from emerging countries, said Forbes’ reporter Keren Blankfeld.
Slim’s net worth surged in the past year as his cell phone holdings rebounded in value. He is the first non-American to top the list since 1994.
Speaking to reporters in 2005, Slim described his philosophy.
“Wealth must be seen as a responsibility, not as a privilege. The responsibility is to create more wealth. It’s like having an orchard; you have to give away the fruit, but not the trees,” he said.
Arturo Elias Ayub, an executive at Slim’s Telmex telephone company and the billionaire’s son-in-law, expressed satisfaction that a Mexican businessman was now at the top of the list.
No champagne
But Slim is not breaking out the champagne.
“This is a number brought out by a magazine that doesn’t concern us, or worry us,” Elias Ayub said, echoing Slim’s 2007 comment about the top spot that had eluded him for years: a Spanish phrase—“me es impermeable”—that roughly translates as “I’m impervious to that.”
Slim is known for wearing inexpensive suits and rarely using the computers his companies sell, preferring old-style paper notebooks. A baseball fan, his indulgences are largely limited to cigars and diet soft drinks.
While he owns—either personally or through his foundations and museums—an impressive collection of art, he works out of a set of somewhat dowdy, 1970s-style offices.
Thrifty eye
A civil engineer by training, Slim has bought up troubled or government-owned companies of all types, fixed them up and resold them for huge profits.
That kind of thrifty eye for undervalued businesses has served him well, especially after the market downturns in recent years.
“In periods of crisis, he has always invested, and now we are beginning to see the fruits of that,” Elias Ayub said.
Blankfeld said the 2010 top 10 list—which includes two billionaires from India and one from Brazil—reflects the increasing presence of developing nations.
Charging Asians
The list includes 97 fresh billionaires, 62 of them charging out of Asia, a region that saw booming stock markets and several large public offerings in the past year.
The donations of both Gates and Buffett also played a role in their decline to the No. 2 and 3 spots.
“A big reason for that is they are both very philanthropic,” Blankfeld said. “They’ve given away so many billions of dollars.”
Slim has also donated to several causes, but not on nearly the same level. In January, he announced a $65-million donation for genetic research on cancer, Type 2 diabetes and kidney disease in Mexican and Latin American populations.
More than 50 million of Mexico’s 107 million people live in poverty, defined as not having enough money to meet housing, transport, education and other normal expenses. Extreme poverty—defined as not having money to buy enough food—afflicted 19.5 million people here in 2008.
In that landscape, Slim’s $53.5-billion fortune has drawn frequent criticism.
“This is shameful,” said Mexico City resident Ernesto Villanueva, 45. “This is part of what is wrong with the Mexican political system and the corruption in the circles of power, that allow there to be a few rich people and millions of poor.”
Slim’s world
Slim’s conglomerate of retail, telco, manufacturing and construction companies so dominate the Mexican commercial landscape it is often easy for Mexicans to find themselves talking over a Slim-operated cell phone at a Slim-owned shopping center waiting to pay a bill to a Slim-owned company at a Slim-owned bank.
If the line is too long, they can catch a quick coffee at a Slim-owned restaurant.
Slim’s Telmex company, which controls 83 percent of land phone lines in Mexico is also the leading Internet service provider. Another of his firms is the leading cell phone operator, and he wants to get into convergence services to offer television and interactive media.
He also owns the Sears and Saks retail stores operating in Mexico.
Dog-eat-dog system
After living for almost two decades in the shadow of Slim, some Mexicans say his wealth is an understandable—and perhaps inevitable—outgrowth of Mexico’s lopsided, dog-eat-dog economic system.
“He was intelligent enough to get to where he is, while we, as a people, have never known how to unite ourselves,” said Mexican student Manuel Santibañez. “We are always looking out for ourselves.”
David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
Creative Writer
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