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The New York Times Carlos Slim tiene un nuevo rival: el mismo Estado que le ayudó a crear su fortun
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The New York Times Carlos Slim tiene un nuevo rival: el mismo Estado que le ayudó a crear su fortun
rip 09.08.16 23:34
Carlos Slim tiene un nuevo rival: el mismo Estado que le ayudó a crear su fortuna
Por AZAM AHMED , RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD y ELISABETH MALKIN
9 agosto 2016
Carlos Slim, centro, llega a una reunión en Nicaragua el año pasado. Más de la mitad de las ventas de celulares de su empresa vienen del extranjero. CreditInti Ocon/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
CIUDAD DE MÉXICO – No todo marcha bien en el reino de Carlos Slim.
Durante más de 25 años, Slim ha dictado los términos de la industria de las telecomunicaciones en México y ha construido un imperio, lo que lo llevó a ser uno de los hombres más ricos del mundo.
Su fortuna se calcula en 50 mil millones de dólares, una cifra que lo ha puesto en la cima de la lista de multimillonarios de Forbes en más de una ocasión. Sus años de riqueza en México le permitieron expandir sus negocios a lo largo del continente americano con compañías que tocan casi todas las facetas de la vida moderna: telecomunicaciones, bancos, construcción y comercio minorista, entre otros.
Pero en su tierra, en México, el juego está cambiando. Y los analistas dicen que no hay mucho que Slim pueda hacer.
Decididos a acabar con su dominio, los líderes de los tres partidos políticos más importantes de México hicieron a un lado sus enemistades en los últimos años y sostuvieron reuniones secretas para socavar el dominio de Slim.
Ahora, el plan que tramaron para aumentar la competencia en la industria de las telecomunicaciones, convertido en ley hace dos años, está comenzando a tener efectos.
Las ganancias de la principal compañía de Slim, América Móvil, están en un declive pronunciado. Cayeron un 24 por ciento en 2015 y casi un 44 por ciento en el primer semestre de este año. Una métrica cuidadosamente analizada de la rentabilidad en Wall Street también ha caído, y las acciones de la empresa han disminuido en un 39 por ciento desde julio del año pasado.
En su informe trimestral de finales de julio, la compañía reconoció que el aumento de la competencia fue limitando sus ganancias en México. De acuerdo con la nueva ley, la empresa de Slim debe someterse a reglas especiales por ser la empresa de telefonía dominante en el país. No puede cobrar tarifas a sus competidores más pequeños cuando sus usuarios utilicen su red, por ejemplo.
Se supone que la compañía debe compartir su infraestructura con los competidores, incluidas las torres para telefonía móvil, por lo que Slim dice que lo obligan a subsidiar a gigantes como AT&T.
“Lo que más ha cambiado y es más importante aquí son las autoridades y su actitud hacia su imperio”, explicó Ernesto Piedras, director general de Competitive Intelligence Unit, una empresa consultora y de investigación. “Esta es la primera vez que Slim no tiene una copia de todas las llaves”.
Los reguladores en México, a veces contra los deseos del gobierno, han tratado de controlar el dominio que ha mantenido Slim durante décadas y se han visto frustrados en cada ocasión.
Su monopolio era tan hegemónico que le costó a los mexicanos 13 mil millones adicionales al año entre 2005 y 2009, según la Organización para la Cooperación y el Desarrollo Económicos (OCDE). Sin embargo, su riqueza, sus ejércitos de abogados y sus vínculos con el gobierno lo mantuvieron un paso por delante de los reguladores, según algunos exfuncionarios.
Pero cuando el Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) volvió a la presidencia en 2012, buscó reafirmar su poder en un país donde el Estado —y no las grandes empresas— había sido el rey. Slim le ofrecía una forma de anotarse puntos con la ciudadanía: los mexicanos ya estaban cansados y se quejaban públicamente por lo que calificaban como un servicio caro y a menudo poco fiable.
La reforma de las telecomunicaciones era una parte esencial del impulso del presidente Enrique Peña Nieto para reestructurar la imagen de México y de su partido, que había gobernado el país durante setenta años antes de perder las elecciones por primera vez en el 2000. Peña Nieto prometió un nuevo PRI, uno dedicado a reactivar la economía. Prometió una nueva era para el país, a la que llamó “el momento de México”.
La celebración duró poco, ya que los escándalos de corrupción y de seguridad hicieron que los niveles de aprobación de Peña Nieto cayeran a un nivel nunca antes visto en un presidente en 25 años. Pero la reestructuración económica continuó. México está invitando a las empresas privadas a extraer petróleo. Los cambios en el sistema de educación pública ya están en marcha. Y Slim enfrenta una competencia real por primera vez.
Las oficinas de Telmex, la compañía que Carlos Slim le compró al gobierno mexicanoCreditBernardo Montoya/Reuters
Para México, la ley de telecomunicaciones ofrece un marcado contraste con muchas promesas incumplidas del Estado (poner fin a la impunidad, encarnar el Estado de derecho, reducir la desigualdad). Que el gobierno haya decidido enfrentarse a Slim, quizá el ciudadano más poderoso del país, es la prueba de que cuando existe voluntad política en México hay una forma de hacerlo.
“Este gobierno invirtió en reformas económicas, pero ignoró las reformas en el sistema judicial y en el campo de la corrupción”, dijo Enrique Krauze, un prominente historiador mexicano que conoce a Slim.
Aun así, los cambios han hecho poca mella en la porción de mercado que pertenece a Slim, quien retiene casi el 70 por ciento del mercado de telefonía móvil y cerca del 65 por ciento en telefonía fija.
En una entrevista, Slim dijo que la nueva ley de telecomunicaciones mexicana establecía el tipo de garantías que todo hombre de negocios aprecia. Pero se enfureció ante la idea de que su empresa requería una normatividad especial por ser dominante, o de que había postergado o impedido la regulación en el pasado.
“Ve todas las regulaciones que nos han puesto. Velas”, dijo. “Cada vez que se quejan de algo, hacen gestiones para que pongan una regulación”.
Slim reconoció que las ganancias se han reducido. Los problemas de divisas en América Latina han cobrado un precio elevado. Y el ingreso reciente de AT&T, que ha prometido gastar miles de millones para competir contra la empresa de Slim, ha ayudado a disminuir de manera significativa los precios de la telefonía móvil. Y aun así, dijo Slim, sus clientes se han mantenido fieles.
“Creían que iban a arrasar por llamarse AT&T”, dijo. “Por un lado dicen que son ‘la red más grande de Norteamérica’ y, por otro, dicen que como aquí son una red chiquita que les demos subsidio”.
Este año, los reguladores mexicanos determinarán si las nuevas medidas son suficientes para restringir el dominio de Slim. Los reguladores pueden doblegar a América Móvil si deciden que no está abierta a la competencia, y pueden imponerle fuertes multas o incluso ordenar la división de la empresa.
En general, Slim parecía optimista sobre sus perspectivas.
“Lo he dicho varias veces: las telecomunicaciones son el sistema nervioso de la nueva civilización”, sentenció. “Tienes que tener una visión de mediano y largo plazo. Nosotros no podemos tener visiones trimestrales”.
No todos los analistas comparten su punto de vista. “Lo peor aún no termina”, dijo Andre Baggio, un analista de J. P. Morgan.
Oportunidad a la vista
Incluso antes de que se convirtiera en un nombre conocido, Carlos Slim ya era un hombre rico. Durante la inestabilidad de los ochenta —una época que suele denominarse la “década perdida” en México—, Slim se había hecho rico comprando empresas en quiebra.
Mientras el país se hundía aún más en la depresión económica, Slim era el inusual hombre de negocios con los bolsillos inagotables. En ese entonces el presidente Carlos Salinas de Gortari, bajo presión en 1990 por vender empresas estatales, envió a un alto funcionario para medir el interés de Slim en la compañía telefónica nacional, Teléfonos de México.
Personas con máscaras de Carlos Slim durante una protesta en Lima en 2013 en contra de su monopolio de telecomunicaciones y su expansión en varios países de América Latina. CreditEnrique Castro-Mendivil/Reuters
Las reglas del juego eran sencillas: quien estuviera dispuesto a comprar la compañía recibiría un monopolio temporal. A cambio, el ganador tendría que invertir miles de millones en una empresa tan ruinosa que los mexicanos no sabían si sus líneas telefónicas iban a tener tono para llamar.
Slim se mostró escéptico. Pero vislumbró una oportunidad.
“Si entro y gano, esto va a cambiar mi vida”, escuchó decir a Slim Jacques Rogozinski, el funcionario mexicano a cargo de la venta.
Y así fue.
Hay varias historias sobre el ascenso de Carlos Slim: un hijo de inmigrantes libaneses que heredó un negocio familiar minorista y construyó un imperio, ladrillo por ladrillo, a lo largo de América Latina. Sus vastas propiedades incluyen un número significativo de acciones de The New York Times.
Pero hay otra parte, dicen los funcionarios: la de atar la regulación a innumerables nudos jurídicos, la de hacerse amigo de los ricos y poderosos para que entendieran que su propio éxito dependía del éxito de Slim.
Esta es una afirmación que molesta a Slim, quien niega haber obstaculizado la regulación. En última instancia, mencionó, eso se reduce a la elección del consumidor, ya se trate de México o de cualquier otro lugar.
Dice: “En un mercado de 110 millones de usuarios tú no puedes hacer que una empresa los retenga”.
Poco después de ganar la licitación de Telmex, Slim se puso a trabajar para mejorar el servicio con sus socios originales, Southwestern Bell y France Télécom; ambas luego vendieron sus acciones en la sociedad. Instaló millones de líneas telefónicas por todo el país y acabó con la práctica habitual de los reparadores de pedir sobornos.
Durante años, el gobierno dejó que Slim dirigiera su monopolio sin interferencias. Estaba construyendo algo más grande que una compañía. Como una de las empresas más importantes de un país emergente en el mercado de valores, Telmex fue vista como un barómetro para toda una clase de activos en Wall Street. La lógica era: hazle daño a Telmex y podrás herir la percepción que el mercado tiene de México.
Pero con el tiempo hubo desacuerdo en las filas. Los funcionarios encargados de regular la competencia en el país trataron de controlarlo. En 1997, la Comisión Federal de Competencia de México dictaminó que Telmex era demasiado poderosa.
Poco después de la decisión, el director de la comisión, Fernando Sánchez Ugarte, recibió una llamada de un alto funcionario que estaba nervioso.
“Esto va a destruir el mercado de valores”, le dijo al director del organismo.
Las apelaciones de Slim contra la sentencia duraron una década, hasta que un juez decidió a su favor. Los reguladores —superados en número, en presupuesto y tratando de reforzar leyes débiles— nunca tuvieron mucha oportunidad, dijeron algunos exfuncionarios.
Los exreguladores recuerdan cómo los abogados de Slim entraban en fila india a la sala de conferencias cargando enormes cajas de documentos para reuniones de rutina. Al menos en una ocasión se le dijo al pelotón de abogados que esperara afuera porque la sala era muy pequeña.
El museo de Carlos Slim en Ciudad de México. Es un homenaje a su esposa, Soumaya, quien murió en 1999. Fue criticado en una reseña como “una bolsa de objetos de miles de categorías”.CreditRonaldo Schemidt/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
“La historia no se trata de Slim”, dijo Robert Lacy, quien estuvo a cargo del asunto regulatorio en relación con Avantel, un primer competidor de Telmex. “El gobierno simplemente cedió”.
Slim dijo que nunca tuvo la intención de amarrar el sistema o de competir injustamente. Más bien, dijo, cuando tuvo que enfrentar una restricción o una multa injusta, él solo se defendió.
Más allá de México
Carlos Slim suele ser comparado con Warren Buffett por su relativamente bajo perfil y su estilo paternalista. Todavía vive en la modesta casa donde crecieron sus hijos y conduce su auto por la ciudad, a diferencia de muchos de la clase acomodada de México.
Hace años, en una visita a una de sus omnipresentes tiendas Sanborns, el empresario se topó con uno de los poetas más reconocidos de México, Homero Aridjis, quien leía un periódico que estaba a la venta en la tienda. Slim le insistió en que lo comprara.
“Él no cree que nada debe ser gratis”, dijo Aridjis, quien agregó que Slim finalmente desistió.
En lugar de servir lujosos banquetes en sus reuniones, algunas veces Slim solo ordena comida de Sanborns, cuya estética recuerda a los restaurantes estadounidenses de una generación anterior.
Slim desembarcó en Brasil en el 2000 y compró empresas de telefonía móvil para crear una compañía nacional. Entonces se enfrentó a una demanda de casi una década con el brazo de inversiones del banco estatal de desarrollo de Brasil, y esperó pacientemente a que los legisladores permitieran a los extranjeros aumentar su control sobre la televisión de pago.
Ese era el Slim clásico. Hoy Brasil es el mercado de suscriptores más grande de América Móvil, mayor incluso que el de México.
Su estrategia incluyó la construcción de una relación cercana con el entonces presidente, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, quien ahora enfrenta cargos por obstrucción de una enorme investigación de corrupción. Slim no ha sido acusado de ningún delito.
No era la primera vez que Slim entablaba amistad con un presidente. En Panamá se hizo amigo rápidamente del expresidente Martín Torrijos: volaba en avión para ir a reuniones, compartir cenas con él y en alguna ocasión incluso le prestó su jet privado para que pudiera asistir al funeral del papa Juan Pablo II.
Panamá representaba una oportunidad y Slim la quería. Después de años de estancamiento bajo la dictadura de Manuel Noriega, Panamá fijó sus esperanzas en las inversiones. Slim, a su vez, vio la posibilidad de expandir su imperio de telefonía móvil y obtener contratos para la expansión del Canal de Panamá.
El comedor del Sanborns ubicado en la Casa de los Azulejos en el centro histórico de Ciudad de México. La cadena de tiendas departamentales es parte de los negocios de Slim, quien suele pedir comida de Sanborns para sus reuniones. CreditGetty Images
Slim logró ambas cosas, pero quería más: una concesión para construir y operar una central de energía hidroeléctrica. Solo había un problema: los derechos ya pertenecían a alguien más, un emprendedor llamado Julio César Lisac, quien había adquirido una concesión de 50 años para las dos represas en 2005.
Un día, un ingeniero mexicano visitó a Lisac.
El ingeniero trabajaba para la empresa eléctrica estatal de México, cuyo gerente ejecutivo era el hermano del yerno de Slim. Fue una visita extraña. La empresa estatal de electricidad mexicana no podía construir ni financiar proyectos fuera del país. A Lisac le quedó claro, dijo, que quien estaba realmente interesado era Slim.
Con el tiempo, los representantes legales de Ideal, una compañía de infraestructura que controla Slim, le hicieron una oferta que Lisac rechazó.
“Slim no es tonto”, apuntó. “Sabía que teníamos buenas represas en una buena ubicación”.
De todos modos, Slim se terminó quedando con el proyecto. Después de no cumplir un plazo, Lisac fue despojado de la concesión en 2006. Menos de dos años más tarde, se le otorgó la concesión a la compañía de Slim.
El empresario panameño peleó en la Corte Suprema de Justicia y ganó, pero los reguladores se rehusaron a cumplir la orden. Para entonces, 2010, Slim ya había construido la central eléctrica y la estaba operando.
Lisac sospechó que la relación cada vez más cercana de Slim con el presidente Ricardo Martinelli, un magnate de supermercados elegido en 2009, podría haber tenido algo que ver. Slim había visitado a Martinelli una semana después de la decisión de la Corte Suprema y habían mantenido buenas relaciones, incluso fueron al último juego del famoso lanzador panameño Mariano Rivera con los Yankees de Nueva York.
Lisac no se dio por vencido y acudió a una corte del Banco Mundial en 2013, pero esta rechazó su impugnación en junio de 2016 con el argumento de que se trataba de una disputa interna de Panamá.
Slim negó que hubiera juego sucio y señaló que él y su empresa habían obtenido la concesión en una licitación del gobierno.
“El demandado era el gobierno de Panamá y el gobierno ya ganó ese pleito”, dijo Slim.
Inversiones suspendidas
Slim no siempre ha prevalecido. En 2011 hizo una visita a los reguladores que acababan de obtener un fallo a su favor del Tribunal Superior de Justicia de México que iba a costarle una fortuna.
El fallo recorta una importante fuente de ingresos de Slim al forzarlo a aceptar tarifas considerablemente reducidas por llamadas de otros proveedores de telefonía celular en sus redes. Slim había luchado contra esos recortes durante años, y le dijo a los reguladores que estaban cometiendo un error.
Pero la opinión pública ya estaba en su contra.
Aunque Slim había invertido fuertemente en el servicio de telefonía de México durante los primeros años, el ritmo se debilitó de manera significativa para la década del 2000. El servicio sufrió las consecuencias, pero no las ganancias. En 2008, el reporte de la Organización para la Cooperación y el Desarrollo Económicos(OCDE) encontró que el margen de ganancias de América Móvil era casi un 70 por ciento más alto que el promedio de los demás países miembro.
México se rezagó también frente a sus pares de América Latina en la expansión del acceso a la banda ancha móvil y quedó detrás de Brasil, Argentina, Colombia e incluso Venezuela, de acuerdo con las cifras de 2014 de la Comisión de la Banda Ancha para el Desarrollo Sostenible, una iniciativa de las Naciones Unidas.
El centro histórico de Ciudad de México, un distrito que Slim ha ayudado a restaurarCreditJaime Puebla/Associated Press
Slim es uno de los copresidentes de la comisión. Al preguntarle por qué hay franjas rurales de su país que no tienen recepción de telefonía celular, mencionó a los reguladores.
“Empezaron a insistir en que teníamos mucha participación de mercado y que era motivo para regulación”, dijo. “Suspendimos la inversión en lugares donde íbamos a tener el 100 por ciento del mercado”.
Muchos mexicanos sentían que estaban pagando más por menos, y eso abrió una oportunidad para el nuevo gobierno. Cuando Enrique Peña Nieto asumió la presidencia en 2012, se fraguó un plan.
El gobierno y los tres principales partidos políticos del país se reunieron en secreto, a menudo entrada la noche, en diferentes lugares de Ciudad de México para evitar filtraciones hasta que la legislación estuviese casi lista.
También le apuntaron a dos compañías de televisión dominantes en México que habían sido igualmente agresivas en la protección de sus cuotas de mercado.
Una vez que se llegó a un acuerdo, los legisladores consagraron la ley en la constitución para desviar las impugnaciones legales características de Slim y establecieron tribunales especiales para que las resolvieran.
Tres jugadas por delante
Aquellos que conocen a Slim dicen que había anticipado desde hacía mucho tiempo que algún día disminuiría su control de las telecomunicaciones en México.
“Él sabía que pasaría esto”, dijo James R. Jones, exembajador estadounidense en México durante los noventa. “Y yo sospecho que él ya estaba planeando sus próximos movimientos”.
Aunque el dominio de Slim, y sus ganancias, pueden estar en riesgo en México, su riqueza ya no depende de ello.
“Él comenzó a invertir en otras cosas”, dijo el año pasado el exsecretario de comunicaciones Juan Molinar, en una entrevista antes de morir. “Hay que seguir el dinero”.
Así que, durante años, el dinero ha fluido por otro lado.
En Estados Unidos, los resultados han sido mixtos. Una inversión en el minorista CompUSA fue un fracaso, mientras que el préstamo de 250 millones de dólares a The New York Times fue una excelente inversión. Ahora es el principal accionista de la empresa (Slim tiene acciones de clase A, que tienen limitado el derecho al voto sobre la junta directiva).
Sus compañías construyen y alquilan plataformas petroleras y pozos de extracción, operan represas en Panamá y construyen gasoductos en México y en Estados Unidos. Incluso está haciendo negocios con el alumno más famoso de Halliburton, Dick Cheney, al invertir junto al exvicepresidente en WellAware, una empresa emergente de servicios de software relacionados con la extracción de petróleo de Texas.
El proyecto de 13 mil millones de dólares del Aeropuerto de Ciudad de México tiene sus huellas, también, incluyendo la participación de un yerno arquitecto y de otro pariente político que participó en el comité de diseño.
Aunque el miembro del comité se recusó a sí mismo, la prensa local vio lo que ve a menudo: “El nuevo aeropuerto de la Ciudad de México tendrá el sello de Carlos Slim”, como lo describió un titular.
Alejandra Xanic von Bertrab colaboró desde Ciudad de México. Paula Ramón colaboró desde São Paulo, Brasil.
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Re: The New York Times Carlos Slim tiene un nuevo rival: el mismo Estado que le ayudó a crear su fortun
rip 09.08.16 23:44
Mexico’s Richest Man Confronts a New Foe: The State That Helped Make Him Rich
By AZAM AHMED, RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD and ELISABETH MALKINAUG. 9, 2016
Carlos Slim, center, arriving for a meeting in Nicaragua last year. More than half of his cellphone company’s sales now come from outside Mexico. CreditInti Ocon/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
MEXICO CITY — All is not well in the kingdom of Carlos Slim.
For more than 25 years, he has dictated the terms of Mexico’s telecommunications industry and built an empire, making him one of the world’s richest men.
Mr. Slim and his family are billionaires 50 times over. He has stood at the very top of the Forbes World’s Billionaires list — more than once. His flush years in Mexico enabled him to span the Americas with companies that touch nearly every facet of modern life: telecom, banking, construction, retail and media, among others.
But at home in Mexico, the game is changing. And there is not much he can do about it, analysts say.
Determined to bring his dominance to an end, leaders from Mexico’s three biggest political parties have put aside their own animosities in recent years, meeting in secret sessions to chip away at Mr. Slim’s domain.
Now, the plan they concocted to increase competition in the telecommunications industry, signed into law two years ago, is starting to bite.
Profits for Mr. Slim’s flagship company, América Móvil, are in steep decline, falling 24 percent in 2015 and almost 44 percent in the first six months of this year, compared with the year-earlier periods. A closely watched metric of profitability on Wall Street has also fallen, and the company’s stock has dropped by 39 percent in the past year.
In its quarterly report last month, the company acknowledged that increased competition was crimping profits in Mexico. Under the new law, it must submit to special rules as the dominant phone company. It cannot charge fees to its smaller competitors when their users call into its network and it must share its infrastructure, including cell towers, all of which Mr. Slim says forces him to subsidize behemoths like AT&T.
“What has changed the most and is most relevant here is the authorities, and their attitude toward this empire,” said Ernesto Piedras, the director general of the Competitive Intelligence Unit, a consulting and research firm. “This is the first time Slim does not have a copy of all the keys.”
Regulators in Mexico, sometimes against their government’s wishes, had tried for decades to rein in Mr. Slim’s dominance, finding themselves thwarted at every turn.
His monopoly was so dominant that it cost Mexicans an extra $13 billion a year between 2005 and 2009, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Still, his wealth, armies of lawyers and government connections kept him a step ahead of weak regulators, former officials say.
But when the Institutional Revolutionary Party took back the presidency in 2012, it looked to reassert its power in a country where the state — not big businesses — has traditionally been king. And Mr. Slim offered a way to score political points at the same time: Mexicans were already openly scornful of what they called his expensive and often unreliable service.
Overhauling telecom was a crucial part of President Enrique Peña Nieto’s push to recast the image of Mexico and his party, which had governed the nation for seven decades before losing an election for the first time in 2000. He vowed a new Institutional Revolutionary Party, dedicated to recharging the economy. He promised a new era, declaring it “Mexico’s moment.”
The celebration was short-lived, with corruption and security scandals sinking Mr. Peña Nieto’s approval ratings to the lowest of any president in a quarter-century. But the economic overhauls continued. Mexico is inviting private companies to drill for oil. Changes to the school system are underway. And Mr. Slim is facing effective competition for the first time.
Photo
The headquarters of the telecom company Telmex, which Mr. Slim purchased from the Mexican government. CreditBernardo Montoya/Reuters
For Mexico, the telecom law offers a stark contrast to the state’s many failed promises — to end corruption, enact the rule of law and bridge inequality. That the government has managed to take on Mr. Slim, arguably the country’s most powerful citizen, is proof that where there is political will in Mexico, there is a way.
“This administration invested in the economic reforms, but they ignored the reforms in the judicial system and in the field of corruption,” said Enrique Krauze, a prominent Mexican historian who knows Mr. Slim.
Still, the changes have done little to dent Mr. Slim’s market share. He retains nearly 70 percent of the cellphone market and about 65 percent of fixed lines.
In an interview, Mr. Slim said the new law established a certainty that all businessmen appreciate. But he bristled at the notion that his company required special regulation, or that it had stalled or impeded regulation in the past.
“Look at all the regulation they have imposed on us. Look at them!” he said. “Every time they complain about something, they lobby to impose a regulation.”
Mr. Slim acknowledged that profits were down. Currency woes in Latin America have taken a heavy toll. And the recent entry of AT&T, which has promised to spend billions to compete with his company, has helped bring down cellphone plan prices significantly, including his own. Through it all, Mr. Slim said, his customers have stayed with him.
“They thought they would come and bulldoze us, just because they are called AT&T,” he said. “On the one hand, they say ‘the biggest network in North America,’ and on the other, they say that because they are small here we should subsidize them.”
This year, Mexican regulators will determine if the new measures are enough to curb Mr. Slim’s dominance. Regulators can crack down further if they decide América Móvil is not opening up to competition — by imposing large fines or even ordering its breakup.
Overall, Mr. Slim appeared sanguine about his prospects.
“I have said it various times: Telecommunications are the nervous system of the new civilization,” he said. “You have to have a medium and long-term vision. You can’t have quarterly visions.”
Not all analysts share his view.
“The worst is not yet over,” said Andre Baggio, an analyst at J.P.Morgan.
Even before he became a household name in Mexico, Carlos Slim was a wealthy man. During the turmoil of the 1980s, a time of severe debt crises often called Mexico’s lost decade, he had grown rich by snapping up bankrupt firms.
As the country slid further into economic depression, Mr. Slim was the rare businessman with deep pockets. So President Carlos Salinas, under pressure in 1990 to sell off state-owned companies, dispatched a top official to gauge Mr. Slim’s interest in buying the national phone company, Teléfonos de México.
Photo
People holding masks representing Mr. Slim during a 2013 demonstration in Lima, Peru, against his telecommunications monopoly in Mexico and his expansion into other Latin American countries.CreditEnrique Castro-Mendivil/Reuters
The pitch was straightforward: Whoever bought the company would receive a temporary monopoly. In exchange, the winner would have to invest billions in a company so decrepit that Mexicans never knew whether they would get a dial tone.
Mr. Slim seemed skeptical. Still, he smelled opportunity.
“If I enter and win, it’s going to change my life,” Jacques Rogozinski, the Mexican official in charge of the sale, recalled Mr. Slim saying.
And so it did.
There are many stories of Carlos Slim’s rise: the son of Lebanese immigrants who inherited a family retail business and built an empire, piece by piece, down the long Latin American stretch of the Western Hemisphere. Those vast holdings include a significant number of shares in The New York Times.
But there is another side, officials say — of tying up regulation in countless legal knots, of befriending the rich and powerful who identified his success with their own.
This assertion enrages Mr. Slim, who denies stymying regulation. Ultimately, it comes down to customer choice, he said, in Mexico or anywhere else.
“You can’t, in a market of 110 million consumers, hold on unless people prefer to stay with you,” he said.
Shortly after winning the bid for Telmex, as the national phone company is called, Mr. Slim got to work improving service with his original partners, Southwestern Bell and France Télécom, both of which later sold their stakes in the partnership. They installed millions of phone lines, and curtailed the common practice of repairmen asking for bribes.
For years, the government left Mr. Slim to tend to the monopoly without interference. He was building something bigger than a company. As one of the first major emerging market stocks, Telmex was seen as a bellwether for an entire asset class on Wall Street. Hurt Telmex, the logic went, and you could hurt the market’s perception of Mexico.
But eventually, there was dissension in the ranks. Officials entrusted with policing competition in Mexico tried to rein him in. In 1997, the Mexican Federal Competition Commission ruled that Telmex was too powerful.
Shortly before the ruling, the head of the commission, Fernando Sánchez Ugarte, got a call from a nervous senior official.
“This will destroy the stock market,” he recalled the official telling him.
Mr. Slim’s appeals of the ruling lasted a decade, until a judge decided in his favor. The regulators — outnumbered, outspent and trying to enforce weak laws — never stood much of a chance, former officials said.
Regulators recall how Mr. Slim’s lawyers would file into a conference room, wheeling large boxes of documents for routine meetings. At least once, the phalanx of lawyers was told to wait outside because the room was too small.
Mr. Slim’s art museum in Mexico City, named after his wife, Soumaya, who died in 1999. It was derided by one critic in a review as a “grab bag of objects across endless categories.”CreditRonaldo Schemidt/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
“The story is not about Slim,” said Robert K. Lacy, who was in charge of regulatory issues for Avantel, an early competitor to Telmex. “The government just buckled.”
Mr. Slim said he never meant to tie up the system or compete unfairly. Rather, he said, when faced with an unjust fine or restriction, he simply fought back.
Mr. Slim is often likened to Warren Buffett for his relatively low-key, avuncular style. He still lives in the modest home where he raised his children and drives himself around town, unlike many in Mexico’s minted class.
Years ago, on a visit to one of his ubiquitous Sanborns department stores, Mr. Slim spotted one of Mexico’s most renowned poets, Homero Aridjis, reading a newspaper for sale in the store.
Mr. Slim insisted he buy it.
“He doesn’t believe anything should be for free,” said Mr. Aridjis, adding that Mr. Slim eventually backed down.
Rather than hosting lavish spreads for meetings, Mr. Slim sometimes just orders in from Sanborns, whose aesthetic is reminiscent of an older generation of American diners.
His reach extends far beyond Mexico, gained with an ability to time investments well and then exploit every opportunity to bolster them.
He swept into Brazil in 2000, buying up cellphone companies to create a national one. He then fought a nearly decade-long lawsuit by the investment arm of Brazil’s state-owned development bank, and waited patiently for lawmakers to let foreigners increase their control over pay television.
It was classic Slim. Today, Brazil is América Móvil’s largest subscriber market — larger even than Mexico.
His strategy included building a close relationship with the president at the time, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who now faces obstruction charges in an enormous corruption probe. Mr. Slim has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
It was not the first time Mr. Slim befriended a president. In Panama, he made fast friends with Martín Torrijos, flying down for meetings, sharing dinners and even lending him a jet to attend the funeral of Pope John Paul II.
Panama represented an opening, and Mr. Slim wanted in. After years of stagnation under the dictatorship of Manuel Noriega, Panama pinned its hopes on investment. Mr. Slim, in turn, saw a chance to expand his cellphone empire and win contracts for the expansion of the Panama Canal.
The dining room at a Sanborns department store, a chain owned by Mr. Slim, in the historic House of Tiles in Mexico City. Rather than hosting lavish spreads for meetings, Mr. Slim sometimes just orders in from Sanborns. CreditGetty Images
He managed both, but Mr. Slim wanted more: a concession to build and operate a hydroelectric power station. There was one problem. The rights belonged to someone else, an entrepreneur named Julio César Lisac, who had acquired 50-year concessions for two dams in 2005.
Then, one day, a Mexican engineer paid Mr. Lisac a visit.
The engineer worked for the Mexican state electric utility, whose chief executive was the brother of Mr. Slim’s son-in-law. It was an odd visit. The Mexican state utility cannot build or finance projects outside Mexico. Mr. Lisac said it became clear that the real suitor was Mr. Slim.
Eventually, representatives of an infrastructure company Mr. Slim controls made an offer. Mr. Lisac refused.
“Slim’s no fool,” he said. “He knew we had good dams in a good location.”
Mr. Slim wound up with the project anyway. After missing a deadline, Mr. Lisac had the concession stripped from him in 2006. Less than two years later, it was awarded to Mr. Slim’s company.
Mr. Lisac fought in Panama’s Supreme Court — and won — but regulators refused to enforce the order. By that time, 2010, Mr. Slim had already built the power station and was operating it.
Mr. Lisac suspected that Mr. Slim’s growing relationship with President Ricardo Martinelli, a supermarket magnate elected in 2009, could be at play. Mr. Slim and Mr. Martinelli maintained friendly relations, including attending the final New York Yankees game of the great Panamanian pitcher Mariano Rivera together.
Refusing to give up, Mr. Lisac went before a World Bank court in 2013, but it rebuffed his challenge this June, calling it a domestic Panamanian dispute.
Mr. Slim denied foul play, noting that he and his company had won the concession in a government auction.
“The government of Panama has won this lawsuit; it’s closed,” Mr. Slim said.
Mr. Slim has not always prevailed. In 2011, he paid a visit to regulators who had just won a decision in Mexico’s Supreme Court that was about to cost him a lot of money.
The ruling cut into an important income stream for Mr. Slim, forcing him to accept vastly reduced fees from other cellphone carriers for calls into his networks. He had fought the cuts for years, and told regulators they were making a mistake.
But public opinion was turning against him.
While Mr. Slim invested heavily in Mexico’s phone service in the early years, the pace slackened significantly by the 2000s. Service suffered, but not profits. In 2008, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development report found, América Móvil’s profit margin was nearly 70 percent higher than the average in other member countries.
Mexico also lagged its Latin American peers in expanding mobile broadband service to all its citizens, falling behind Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and even Venezuela, according to 2014 figures from the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development, a United Nations initiative.
The historic district that Mr. Slim has helped to restore in Mexico City. CreditJaime Puebla/Associated Press
Mr. Slim is one of the commission’s co-chairmen. Asked why rural stretches of his country have no cellphone reception, he cited regulators.
“They began to insist that we have a lot of market share and that it was a reason to regulate us,” he said. “We suspended investment in places where we would have 100 percent of the market” because it would invite more regulation.
Many Mexicans felt they were paying more for less, creating an opening for the new government. As Mr. Peña Nieto took office in 2012, a plan was hatched.
The government and Mexico’s three major parties met secretly, choosing different locations around Mexico City, often late at night, to avoid word leaking out until the legislation was almost ready.
They also took aim at Mexico’s two dominant television companies, which had been equally aggressive in protecting their market shares.
Once a deal was reached, lawmakers enshrined the law in the Constitution to head off Mr. Slim’s legal challenges, and set up special courts to rule on them.
Those who know Mr. Slim say he has long anticipated the day when his control of Mexican telecom would diminish.
“He knew this was coming,” said James R. Jones, a former American ambassador to Mexico during the 1990s. “And I suspect he was planning three moves ahead.”
While Mr. Slim’s dominance — and profits — may be under threat in Mexico, his wealth no longer depends on it.
“He began to invest in other things,” said Juan Molinar, a former communications minister, in an interview before he died last year. “Follow the money.”
And for years, the money has flowed elsewhere.
In the United States, the results have been mixed. An investment in the retailer CompUSA was a failure, while a repaid $250 million loan to The New York Times made a handsome investment. He is now the company’s largest shareholder (Mr. Slim holds Class A shares, which have limited voting rights).
His companies build and lease offshore rigs, drill wells, operate dams in Panama and build gas pipelines in Mexico and the United States. He is even doing business with Halliburton’s most famous alumnus, Dick Cheney, investing alongside the former vice president in WellAware, a Texas oil services software start-up.
46COMMENTS
Mexico’s $13 billion airport project has his fingerprints on it, too, including a son-in-law in partnership with the chief architect and another relative by marriage who served on the design committee.
Though the committee member recused himself, the local news media saw what it often sees: “The New Mexico City Airport Will Have the Stamp of Carlos Slim,” as one headline put it.
Alejandra Xanic von Bertrab contributed reporting from Mexico City, and Paula Ramón from São Paulo, Brazil.
By AZAM AHMED, RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD and ELISABETH MALKINAUG. 9, 2016
Carlos Slim, center, arriving for a meeting in Nicaragua last year. More than half of his cellphone company’s sales now come from outside Mexico. CreditInti Ocon/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
MEXICO CITY — All is not well in the kingdom of Carlos Slim.
For more than 25 years, he has dictated the terms of Mexico’s telecommunications industry and built an empire, making him one of the world’s richest men.
Mr. Slim and his family are billionaires 50 times over. He has stood at the very top of the Forbes World’s Billionaires list — more than once. His flush years in Mexico enabled him to span the Americas with companies that touch nearly every facet of modern life: telecom, banking, construction, retail and media, among others.
But at home in Mexico, the game is changing. And there is not much he can do about it, analysts say.
Determined to bring his dominance to an end, leaders from Mexico’s three biggest political parties have put aside their own animosities in recent years, meeting in secret sessions to chip away at Mr. Slim’s domain.
Now, the plan they concocted to increase competition in the telecommunications industry, signed into law two years ago, is starting to bite.
Profits for Mr. Slim’s flagship company, América Móvil, are in steep decline, falling 24 percent in 2015 and almost 44 percent in the first six months of this year, compared with the year-earlier periods. A closely watched metric of profitability on Wall Street has also fallen, and the company’s stock has dropped by 39 percent in the past year.
In its quarterly report last month, the company acknowledged that increased competition was crimping profits in Mexico. Under the new law, it must submit to special rules as the dominant phone company. It cannot charge fees to its smaller competitors when their users call into its network and it must share its infrastructure, including cell towers, all of which Mr. Slim says forces him to subsidize behemoths like AT&T.
“What has changed the most and is most relevant here is the authorities, and their attitude toward this empire,” said Ernesto Piedras, the director general of the Competitive Intelligence Unit, a consulting and research firm. “This is the first time Slim does not have a copy of all the keys.”
Regulators in Mexico, sometimes against their government’s wishes, had tried for decades to rein in Mr. Slim’s dominance, finding themselves thwarted at every turn.
His monopoly was so dominant that it cost Mexicans an extra $13 billion a year between 2005 and 2009, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Still, his wealth, armies of lawyers and government connections kept him a step ahead of weak regulators, former officials say.
But when the Institutional Revolutionary Party took back the presidency in 2012, it looked to reassert its power in a country where the state — not big businesses — has traditionally been king. And Mr. Slim offered a way to score political points at the same time: Mexicans were already openly scornful of what they called his expensive and often unreliable service.
Overhauling telecom was a crucial part of President Enrique Peña Nieto’s push to recast the image of Mexico and his party, which had governed the nation for seven decades before losing an election for the first time in 2000. He vowed a new Institutional Revolutionary Party, dedicated to recharging the economy. He promised a new era, declaring it “Mexico’s moment.”
The celebration was short-lived, with corruption and security scandals sinking Mr. Peña Nieto’s approval ratings to the lowest of any president in a quarter-century. But the economic overhauls continued. Mexico is inviting private companies to drill for oil. Changes to the school system are underway. And Mr. Slim is facing effective competition for the first time.
Photo
The headquarters of the telecom company Telmex, which Mr. Slim purchased from the Mexican government. CreditBernardo Montoya/Reuters
For Mexico, the telecom law offers a stark contrast to the state’s many failed promises — to end corruption, enact the rule of law and bridge inequality. That the government has managed to take on Mr. Slim, arguably the country’s most powerful citizen, is proof that where there is political will in Mexico, there is a way.
“This administration invested in the economic reforms, but they ignored the reforms in the judicial system and in the field of corruption,” said Enrique Krauze, a prominent Mexican historian who knows Mr. Slim.
Still, the changes have done little to dent Mr. Slim’s market share. He retains nearly 70 percent of the cellphone market and about 65 percent of fixed lines.
In an interview, Mr. Slim said the new law established a certainty that all businessmen appreciate. But he bristled at the notion that his company required special regulation, or that it had stalled or impeded regulation in the past.
“Look at all the regulation they have imposed on us. Look at them!” he said. “Every time they complain about something, they lobby to impose a regulation.”
Mr. Slim acknowledged that profits were down. Currency woes in Latin America have taken a heavy toll. And the recent entry of AT&T, which has promised to spend billions to compete with his company, has helped bring down cellphone plan prices significantly, including his own. Through it all, Mr. Slim said, his customers have stayed with him.
“They thought they would come and bulldoze us, just because they are called AT&T,” he said. “On the one hand, they say ‘the biggest network in North America,’ and on the other, they say that because they are small here we should subsidize them.”
This year, Mexican regulators will determine if the new measures are enough to curb Mr. Slim’s dominance. Regulators can crack down further if they decide América Móvil is not opening up to competition — by imposing large fines or even ordering its breakup.
Overall, Mr. Slim appeared sanguine about his prospects.
“I have said it various times: Telecommunications are the nervous system of the new civilization,” he said. “You have to have a medium and long-term vision. You can’t have quarterly visions.”
Not all analysts share his view.
“The worst is not yet over,” said Andre Baggio, an analyst at J.P.Morgan.
Taking Advantage of Opportunity
Even before he became a household name in Mexico, Carlos Slim was a wealthy man. During the turmoil of the 1980s, a time of severe debt crises often called Mexico’s lost decade, he had grown rich by snapping up bankrupt firms.
As the country slid further into economic depression, Mr. Slim was the rare businessman with deep pockets. So President Carlos Salinas, under pressure in 1990 to sell off state-owned companies, dispatched a top official to gauge Mr. Slim’s interest in buying the national phone company, Teléfonos de México.
Photo
People holding masks representing Mr. Slim during a 2013 demonstration in Lima, Peru, against his telecommunications monopoly in Mexico and his expansion into other Latin American countries.CreditEnrique Castro-Mendivil/Reuters
The pitch was straightforward: Whoever bought the company would receive a temporary monopoly. In exchange, the winner would have to invest billions in a company so decrepit that Mexicans never knew whether they would get a dial tone.
Mr. Slim seemed skeptical. Still, he smelled opportunity.
“If I enter and win, it’s going to change my life,” Jacques Rogozinski, the Mexican official in charge of the sale, recalled Mr. Slim saying.
And so it did.
There are many stories of Carlos Slim’s rise: the son of Lebanese immigrants who inherited a family retail business and built an empire, piece by piece, down the long Latin American stretch of the Western Hemisphere. Those vast holdings include a significant number of shares in The New York Times.
But there is another side, officials say — of tying up regulation in countless legal knots, of befriending the rich and powerful who identified his success with their own.
This assertion enrages Mr. Slim, who denies stymying regulation. Ultimately, it comes down to customer choice, he said, in Mexico or anywhere else.
“You can’t, in a market of 110 million consumers, hold on unless people prefer to stay with you,” he said.
Shortly after winning the bid for Telmex, as the national phone company is called, Mr. Slim got to work improving service with his original partners, Southwestern Bell and France Télécom, both of which later sold their stakes in the partnership. They installed millions of phone lines, and curtailed the common practice of repairmen asking for bribes.
For years, the government left Mr. Slim to tend to the monopoly without interference. He was building something bigger than a company. As one of the first major emerging market stocks, Telmex was seen as a bellwether for an entire asset class on Wall Street. Hurt Telmex, the logic went, and you could hurt the market’s perception of Mexico.
But eventually, there was dissension in the ranks. Officials entrusted with policing competition in Mexico tried to rein him in. In 1997, the Mexican Federal Competition Commission ruled that Telmex was too powerful.
Shortly before the ruling, the head of the commission, Fernando Sánchez Ugarte, got a call from a nervous senior official.
“This will destroy the stock market,” he recalled the official telling him.
Mr. Slim’s appeals of the ruling lasted a decade, until a judge decided in his favor. The regulators — outnumbered, outspent and trying to enforce weak laws — never stood much of a chance, former officials said.
Regulators recall how Mr. Slim’s lawyers would file into a conference room, wheeling large boxes of documents for routine meetings. At least once, the phalanx of lawyers was told to wait outside because the room was too small.
Mr. Slim’s art museum in Mexico City, named after his wife, Soumaya, who died in 1999. It was derided by one critic in a review as a “grab bag of objects across endless categories.”CreditRonaldo Schemidt/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
“The story is not about Slim,” said Robert K. Lacy, who was in charge of regulatory issues for Avantel, an early competitor to Telmex. “The government just buckled.”
Mr. Slim said he never meant to tie up the system or compete unfairly. Rather, he said, when faced with an unjust fine or restriction, he simply fought back.
A Reach Far Beyond Mexico
Mr. Slim is often likened to Warren Buffett for his relatively low-key, avuncular style. He still lives in the modest home where he raised his children and drives himself around town, unlike many in Mexico’s minted class.
Years ago, on a visit to one of his ubiquitous Sanborns department stores, Mr. Slim spotted one of Mexico’s most renowned poets, Homero Aridjis, reading a newspaper for sale in the store.
Mr. Slim insisted he buy it.
“He doesn’t believe anything should be for free,” said Mr. Aridjis, adding that Mr. Slim eventually backed down.
Rather than hosting lavish spreads for meetings, Mr. Slim sometimes just orders in from Sanborns, whose aesthetic is reminiscent of an older generation of American diners.
His reach extends far beyond Mexico, gained with an ability to time investments well and then exploit every opportunity to bolster them.
He swept into Brazil in 2000, buying up cellphone companies to create a national one. He then fought a nearly decade-long lawsuit by the investment arm of Brazil’s state-owned development bank, and waited patiently for lawmakers to let foreigners increase their control over pay television.
It was classic Slim. Today, Brazil is América Móvil’s largest subscriber market — larger even than Mexico.
His strategy included building a close relationship with the president at the time, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who now faces obstruction charges in an enormous corruption probe. Mr. Slim has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
It was not the first time Mr. Slim befriended a president. In Panama, he made fast friends with Martín Torrijos, flying down for meetings, sharing dinners and even lending him a jet to attend the funeral of Pope John Paul II.
Panama represented an opening, and Mr. Slim wanted in. After years of stagnation under the dictatorship of Manuel Noriega, Panama pinned its hopes on investment. Mr. Slim, in turn, saw a chance to expand his cellphone empire and win contracts for the expansion of the Panama Canal.
The dining room at a Sanborns department store, a chain owned by Mr. Slim, in the historic House of Tiles in Mexico City. Rather than hosting lavish spreads for meetings, Mr. Slim sometimes just orders in from Sanborns. CreditGetty Images
He managed both, but Mr. Slim wanted more: a concession to build and operate a hydroelectric power station. There was one problem. The rights belonged to someone else, an entrepreneur named Julio César Lisac, who had acquired 50-year concessions for two dams in 2005.
Then, one day, a Mexican engineer paid Mr. Lisac a visit.
The engineer worked for the Mexican state electric utility, whose chief executive was the brother of Mr. Slim’s son-in-law. It was an odd visit. The Mexican state utility cannot build or finance projects outside Mexico. Mr. Lisac said it became clear that the real suitor was Mr. Slim.
Eventually, representatives of an infrastructure company Mr. Slim controls made an offer. Mr. Lisac refused.
“Slim’s no fool,” he said. “He knew we had good dams in a good location.”
Mr. Slim wound up with the project anyway. After missing a deadline, Mr. Lisac had the concession stripped from him in 2006. Less than two years later, it was awarded to Mr. Slim’s company.
Mr. Lisac fought in Panama’s Supreme Court — and won — but regulators refused to enforce the order. By that time, 2010, Mr. Slim had already built the power station and was operating it.
Mr. Lisac suspected that Mr. Slim’s growing relationship with President Ricardo Martinelli, a supermarket magnate elected in 2009, could be at play. Mr. Slim and Mr. Martinelli maintained friendly relations, including attending the final New York Yankees game of the great Panamanian pitcher Mariano Rivera together.
Refusing to give up, Mr. Lisac went before a World Bank court in 2013, but it rebuffed his challenge this June, calling it a domestic Panamanian dispute.
Mr. Slim denied foul play, noting that he and his company had won the concession in a government auction.
“The government of Panama has won this lawsuit; it’s closed,” Mr. Slim said.
Suspending Investment
Mr. Slim has not always prevailed. In 2011, he paid a visit to regulators who had just won a decision in Mexico’s Supreme Court that was about to cost him a lot of money.
The ruling cut into an important income stream for Mr. Slim, forcing him to accept vastly reduced fees from other cellphone carriers for calls into his networks. He had fought the cuts for years, and told regulators they were making a mistake.
But public opinion was turning against him.
While Mr. Slim invested heavily in Mexico’s phone service in the early years, the pace slackened significantly by the 2000s. Service suffered, but not profits. In 2008, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development report found, América Móvil’s profit margin was nearly 70 percent higher than the average in other member countries.
Mexico also lagged its Latin American peers in expanding mobile broadband service to all its citizens, falling behind Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and even Venezuela, according to 2014 figures from the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development, a United Nations initiative.
The historic district that Mr. Slim has helped to restore in Mexico City. CreditJaime Puebla/Associated Press
Mr. Slim is one of the commission’s co-chairmen. Asked why rural stretches of his country have no cellphone reception, he cited regulators.
“They began to insist that we have a lot of market share and that it was a reason to regulate us,” he said. “We suspended investment in places where we would have 100 percent of the market” because it would invite more regulation.
Many Mexicans felt they were paying more for less, creating an opening for the new government. As Mr. Peña Nieto took office in 2012, a plan was hatched.
The government and Mexico’s three major parties met secretly, choosing different locations around Mexico City, often late at night, to avoid word leaking out until the legislation was almost ready.
They also took aim at Mexico’s two dominant television companies, which had been equally aggressive in protecting their market shares.
Once a deal was reached, lawmakers enshrined the law in the Constitution to head off Mr. Slim’s legal challenges, and set up special courts to rule on them.
‘Planning Three Moves Ahead’
Those who know Mr. Slim say he has long anticipated the day when his control of Mexican telecom would diminish.
“He knew this was coming,” said James R. Jones, a former American ambassador to Mexico during the 1990s. “And I suspect he was planning three moves ahead.”
While Mr. Slim’s dominance — and profits — may be under threat in Mexico, his wealth no longer depends on it.
“He began to invest in other things,” said Juan Molinar, a former communications minister, in an interview before he died last year. “Follow the money.”
And for years, the money has flowed elsewhere.
In the United States, the results have been mixed. An investment in the retailer CompUSA was a failure, while a repaid $250 million loan to The New York Times made a handsome investment. He is now the company’s largest shareholder (Mr. Slim holds Class A shares, which have limited voting rights).
His companies build and lease offshore rigs, drill wells, operate dams in Panama and build gas pipelines in Mexico and the United States. He is even doing business with Halliburton’s most famous alumnus, Dick Cheney, investing alongside the former vice president in WellAware, a Texas oil services software start-up.
46COMMENTS
Mexico’s $13 billion airport project has his fingerprints on it, too, including a son-in-law in partnership with the chief architect and another relative by marriage who served on the design committee.
Though the committee member recused himself, the local news media saw what it often sees: “The New Mexico City Airport Will Have the Stamp of Carlos Slim,” as one headline put it.
Alejandra Xanic von Bertrab contributed reporting from Mexico City, and Paula Ramón from São Paulo, Brazil.
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