Carlos Slim to Invest Heavily in Lat Am
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- Category: Business
- Published on Thursday, February 03 2011 06:09
- Written by Rod Hughes
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Mexican mogul Carlos Slim, reputedly the richest man in the world, has promised to invest more than $8.3 billion in Latin America in 2011. This undoubtedly includes his American Movil company, one of two telecommunications firms that recently won their bid to compete in the cell phone market against ICE here.
The majority of this money will be put into his native Mexico and in Brazil, the latter because of the serious challenges by former state monopolies.
Slim has investments in 19 countries in Latin America he noted in a recent press conference in Mexico City, but 74% will be in Mexico and Brazil. Other countries to receive much of the rest are Colombia, Peru, Chile and Argentina.
Some 40% of the 3.6 billion to be invested in Mexico this year will be in telecommunications. As evidenced by one of Larry King's final interview shows on CNN in December, he is proud of his country despite all of its problems and has done much philanthropic work there, especially in the neighborhood in which he grew up.
Besides American Movil, he also owns Telefonos de Mexico (Telemex) and Telcel. He did not mention American Movil's interest in Costa Rica but that investment may have been already included in the 2010 company budget.
