Carlos Slim's Manhattan Townhouse

It looks like Mexico’s Carlos Slim (the world’s richest person worth $60 billion) is doing a bit of shopping in New York City!

He has just bought a Fifth Avenue townhouse for $44 million at 1009 Fifth Avenue with the sale closing on July 21 2010. The townhouse is located at East 82nd Street across from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and apparently is the only private mansion left on Fifth Avenue.

Although only 27 feet wide the townhouse boasts 20,000 square feet of space and stands six stories tall.
The house previously belonged to the family of Doris Duke, and has been known as the Duke-Semans mansion, was owned by descendants of the original owner, tobacco magnate Benjamin N. Duke, until 2006.

The mansion was sold at that time for $40 million – then a record sale in the city – to Tamir Sapir, a former cabdriver who made a fortune in Russian oil and is now a real-estate investor and developer.

In June of this year, Slim bought another New York City property, paying $140 million for an 11-story office building at 417 Fifth Avenue. Recently, Slim also became a major investor in the New York Times.

So much for New York. Now what is Carlos Slim up to in Mexico? His company, Grupo Frisco, is digging for gold in Mexico, taking advantage of gold prices that touched a record last month while awaiting a broader economic rebound. Slim, whose fortune is mainly in Mexico’s telephone company, has been in the mining business for more than two decades.

Carlos Slim

Meanwhile, here in Mexicali, the city is getting spruced up with upscale restaurants, serving great meals of steak, and pasta. One, La Piazza, has a chef who worked in Portofino, Italy.

In the last two years, we have noticed new buildings and restaurants in Mexicali. Who knows if any of them belong to Carlos Slim? In any event, the residents are pleased as they too, get to enjoy the gourmet delights that Mexicali has to off

Carlos Slim Helu

A Mexican businessman by the name of Carlos Slim is now the richest person in the world, according to Forbes magazine.  Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, of the U.S., have to settle for second and third place.

Carlos Slim is worth a staggering $53.5 billion.

With the name of Carlos Slim, you might think he was a south-of-the-border cowboy who rolls his own cigarettes – nothing could be further from the truth.

His full name is Carlos Slim Helu.  Mexicans respectfully add their mother’s name onto their own, hence the “Helu.”

Slim was born on January 28th 1940, in Mexico City, one of six children – Carlos was number five and the youngest boy.

Carlos Slim’s father, Julian (who changed his last name from Salim to Slim), was a Lebanese immigrant living in Mexico City and running a small store.  His mother, Linda Helu, came from a distinguished family, also of Lebanese origin, owners of a magazine.

Slim started young.  On the school playground, he profited by trading baseball cards.  At 11 he had already bought his first government savings bonds.  At 15 he had invested in Banco Nacional de México shares.

In Mexico’s financial crisis of 1982, Slim bought out dozens of companies at rock-bottom prices.  Slim became a major player and he was only getting bigger.

In 1990 Slim snapped up Telmex, the former state telephone firm – and he never looked back.  Slim now owns controlling interests in at least hundreds of companies.  By some estimates his firm accounts for a third of Mexico’s leading stock market index and some 7% of its annual economic output.  In addition, Slim has interests outside of Mexico, including a major position in the New York Times – which he may just take over. Slim also owns an 18 percent stake in U.S. retailer, Saks.

In spite of his vast fortune, Slim lives in the same house he purchased with his wife, Soumaya, 40 years ago. He has no yacht, and no homes outside of Mexico (hotels are cheaper, he says).  According to a friend, on a vacation to Italy, Slim haggled for two hours to get ten dollars off the price of a necktie.

Carlos Slim’s only expensive passion is art. Today, his art collection includes 66,000 pieces, from 15th century European masters to the second-largest private collection of sculptures by Auguste Rodin outside of France.

Soumaya Museum

When his wife died 1999, he built a  183,000 square-foot art museum in Mexico City and named it after her – the Soumaya Museum. The museum is part of a 12-acre urban development that will include two 22-story office towers and the corporate headquarters for Slim’s business conglomerate, Grupo Carso. There will also be a shopping mall, two upscale apartment towers, and an underground theater.

The entire complex has won praise in international design competitions. It was designed by well-regarded Mexican architect Fernando Romero, 38, who is married to Slim’s daughter, also named Soumaya,

Like most Mexicans, Slim is a family man and has six children.  Three of his sons now help with the family business. One son, Patrick Slim, is chairman of America Movil, Latin America’s largest mobile-phone company with nearly 200 million clients; another, Carlos Slim Domit, runs Grupo Carso; and a third, Marco Antonio Slim, heads the banking company Inbursa. Two of Slim’s daughters are married to telecom executives within their father’s corporate empire.

With all this activity, Slim has found time to donate $10 billion since 2006 through his two foundations.

Carlos Slim Helu has become the pride of Mexico.