World's third-richest man casts long and controversial shadow in Mexico

By Mark Stevenson
ASSOCIATED PRESS
2:22 p.m. March 12, 2007

MEXICO CITY – The world's third-richest man, Carlos Slim, is gaining rapidly on Bill Gates and Warren Buffet with a fortune that grew $19 billion last year – the largest wealth gain in the past decade tracked by Forbes magazine.

It's also a sign of the wealth gap in Mexico's monopoly-laden economy.

Since Slim bought the telephone monopoly in a 1991 privatization, he's used Telmex as a cash cow to build an empire that includes Latin America's largest mobile phone company; provides banking, brokerage and Internet services; sells insurance and oil industry equipment; and operates retail stores and restaurants.