100 Entrepreneurs Who Changed The World
72. Carlos Slim Helu(1940- )
“Mistakes are normal and human. Make them small, accept them, correct them, and forget them.”
Carlos Slim Helu, known as Slim, is a Mexican entrepreneur and businessman. He is also the richest man alive, having amassed over $53.5 billion! Helu’s fortune began when he inherited a large amount of real estate from his parents. He used the profits from the sales to make some really wise investments. He helped to form Grupo Galas S. A, which was later renamed Grupo, Carso, which had business interests in the restaurants, real estate, mining, tobacco, railways, and general retail markets. Grupo brought in serious returns, and Helu attracted other large companies to his umbrella, eventually becoming majority shareholder of Cigtam. Cigtam, of course, manufactures Phillip-Morrison cigarettes. In the 1990’s he attracted Sears to his group. But his fortune really exploded when he monopolized Mexico’s telecommunication industry under Telmex.
