Forbes magazine’s recently published list of billionaires lists ten in Mexico, a country where the per capita income is less than US$7,000.
The richest man in Mexico and the second richest man in the world, Carlos Slim, is in the rarefied company of US billionaires Warren Buffet ($62 billion) and Bill Gates ($58 billion), numbers one and three respectively.
Here’s this year’s lineup of Mexico’s richest men, in US dollars.
Carlos Slim. $60 billion. Slim began building his fortune in 1990 when he bought Telmex (Teléfonos de México), which now controls over 90% of Mexico’s landlines. He also owns Telcel, which controls almost 80% of the Mexican cellular phone market; and América Móvil, Latin America’s biggest wireless provider.
There is little industry in Mexico that Slim does not have an interest in, including a bank, an airline, department stores, restaurants and music outlets, insurance, auto parts and ceramic tile businesses. He also constructs roads, water treatment plants and petroleum platforms for the Mexican government.
Alberto Bailleres, $9.8 billion. Chairman of Industrias Peñoles, the leading Latin American metallurgical company that refines gold, lead and zinc. His stock more than doubled last year. Bailleres also has stock in the luxury department store El Palacio de Hierro, and in the insurance company Grupo Nacional Provincial S.A.
German Larrea Mota-Velasco, $7.3 billion. Lumber and mining magnate of Grupo México, founded by his late father. This company mines zinc, silver and lead, and has been helped by the rising price of copper. He also controls Mexico’s biggest railroad.
Ricardo Salinas Pliego, $6.3 billion. Salinas Pliego runs the discount retailer Grupo Elektra, a family enterprise he took over in 1987. He also owns the TV Azteca network, the nation’s number two network. Salinas Pliego is trying to undercut Slim with his mobile carrier Unefon, and he has opened his own bank as part of the Elektra chain which mostly serves low-income clients. Elektra also sells Chinese cars.
Jeronimo Arango, $4.3 billion. Since 1958, Arango’s family business has been the Bodega Aurrera supermarket chain, part of Grupo Cifra, which sold out to Wal-Mart and became Wal-Mart de México (Walmex), which netted Arango $2 billion. Arango also owns real estate in Acapulco and the Baja Peninsula.
Isaac Saba Raffoul, $2.1 billion. Runs Grupo Casa Saba which markets health, pharmaceutical and beauty products. Saba has a joint venture with Telemundo to produce telenovelas.
Roberto Hernandez, $1.7 billion. Hernandez was CEO of Banamex when the bank sold out to Citigroup in 2001, netting him almost $2 billion. Hernandez also owns resorts on the Yucatan Peninsula.
Emilio Azcarraga Jean, $1.6 billion. Took over media giant Grupo Televisa when his father died in 1997. The network is well-known for telenovelas, which it is now making for the Chinese market. The company also has off-track betting and a discount airline. The company bought Bestel, a long-distance provider and launched a free video-sharing site on its Web portal.
Alfredo Harp Helu, $1.6 billion. A cousin of Carlos Slim’s, and onetime head of Banamex, he made his fortune selling out to Citigroup in 2001. He also owns the Mexico City Red Devils baseball team. He is president of two Banamex philanthropic foundations.
Lorenzo Zambrano, $1.5 billion. At number 785 in the Forbes list, he is head of cement giant Cemex, founded by his grandfather in 1906. The company continues to expand, buying RMC, a British cement firm in 2005 and last year, acquiring Rinker, the Australian building materials group.
These standings reflect how much their stock was worth in February, when the list was created. Last year, Slim was the world’s richest man according to Fortune magazine.