Mexico's Carlos Slim Has Lost Billions of Dollars Thanks to Better Regulation Ana Campoy - Quartz
go to original March 3, 2016

No longer number 1. (Reuters/Valentin Flauraud)

Carlos Slim, the Mexican telecom tycoon who was once the richest man on earth, has dropped to fourth place in Forbes magazine’s most recent billionaire list.

Slim, the son of Lebanese immigrants, is now worth only $50 billion, down $27.1 billion from last year, when he ranked second richest after Bill Gates, according to the publication. He’s this year’s biggest loser on the billionaire list.

He can partly thank anti-trust telecommunications regulations in Mexico. Shares of América Móvil, his wireless services company, have dropped 18% since the beginning of 2015, when the Mexican government started implementing laws too boost competition among telecom providers. The stronger dollar and weakness in Brazil, another big market for the company, made matters worse.



Although América Móvil has businesses in other Latin American countries and the US, Mexico represents about 40% of its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, according to the company’s latest financial statements (pdf.) Its net profit dropped 24% to $35 billion pesos ($1.96 billion) in 2015 compared with the previous year.

Read the rest at Quartz

Related: Mexico’s Carlos Slim Is Moving Into Spain in a Big Way (El Daily Post)

Related: Donald Trump Is Not as Rich as He Claims: Forbes (Agence France-Presse)

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