MEXICO CITY — Telecom mogul Carlos Slim Helu has built a corporate empire so vast that it's nearly impossible for most Mexicans to go a day without slipping a few pesos into his pocket.
Those pesos add up. On Thursday, Forbes magazine estimated his net worth at $49 billion.
That represented a stunning $19-billion increase from 2006, the biggest one-year jump in a decade for anyone on the magazine's annual list of the world's richest people.
Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates' $56 billion helped him retain the top spot. Investor Warren Buffett was again runner-up with $52 billion.
But with those tycoon-philanthropists increasingly focused on giving away their fortunes, the 67-year-old Slim appears destined to surpass them both. Although his third-place ranking didn't change from 2006, he increased his wealth by 63%. That's a growth rate of $2.2 million an hour.
When Mexicans talk on the phone or use the Internet, they're almost certainly doing it through a company controlled by Slim, who in 1990 bought control of the old state-owned telephone company Telefonos de Mexico, or Telmex, and turned it into a cash machine. Profits from that near-monopoly have bankrolled Slim's telecom acquisitions around the region, propelling his America Movil wireless spinoff into the largest provider of cellphone service in Latin America.
Mexicans buy cigarettes from Slim's tobacco company, apply for mortgages at his bank and purchase policies at his insurance firm. Shoppers patronize his department stores, eat at his restaurants and browse for CDs at his music outlets.
Travelers fly his discount airline. Industrialists buy his auto parts, electronics, steel and ceramic tile. The government hires his infrastructure firm to build highways, water treatment plants and oil platforms. More than 250,000 Mexican employees draw paychecks from his companies.
"It's virtually cradle to grave. It's Slimlandia," said George Grayson, a Mexico expert at the College of William and Mary in Virginia. "You are engulfed by Slim in Mexico."
The portly Slim has more than tripled his fortune since Forbes published its 2004 list, thanks to a string of acquisitions and the ballooning value of his telecom holdings. His current net worth is equivalent to nearly 6% of his nation's gross domestic product, a feat unmatched even by America's robber barons at the height of their influence.
