Carlos Slim

It's not a reverential term. Many Mexicans hoped privatization, which began in the early 1990s, would create competition and drive prices down drastically. That hasn't happened. "Slim is one of a dozen fat cats in Mexico who impede
that country's growth because they run monopolies or oligopolies," says Grayson. "The Mexican economy is highly inefficient, and it is losing its competitive standing vis-à-vis other countries because of people like Slim."

ANYONE EXPECTING TO FIND monuments to the Slim financial empire in Mexico City--a gleaming TelMex tower jutting out of the skyline or an América Móvil stadium--would leave disappointed. In fact, América Móvil, Latin America's
largest provider of wireless services, is housed in a converted tire factory. The juxtaposition of austerity and wealth can be quite odd, as evidenced by a recent visit to the headquarters of Inbursa, Slim's financial business. Just beyond the lobby is a makeshift art gallery that features a rotating selection of paintings on loan from the Museo Soumaya, a Slim-financed fine-arts museum named after his wife, who died in 1999 The room is a bit shabby. It is poorly lit and smells faintly of cigarettes; several large crates are propped against one of the walls. "We had several El Grecos here," Arturo Elias Ayub, Slim's
son-in-law and spokesman, says matter-of-factly. There's also a folding table in the center of the room. "Mr. Slim sometimes likes to eat his lunch here," Elias adds.

The famous Slim thrift--he used to show up for business meetings wearing a cheap calculator watch--extends across the entire company. Years ago he wrote "official principles" for Grupo Carso, his industrial conglomerate,
which are distributed annually to all employees. One tenet translates into English as follows: "Maintain austerity in prosperous times (in times when the cow is fat with milk); it accelerates corporate development and avoids the
need for drastic change in times of crisis." So, for example, TelMex's net debt equals Ebitda, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, a statistic that's unheard-of in its industry, where debt is
typically three times cash flow. América Móvil actually has less debt than Ebitda. "They're rabid about costs," says New York--based Citi investment research analyst Patrick Grenham. "They borrow as little as possible and very carefully."


Ideas: bottom feeder- an opportunist, as in politics or business: bottom feeders who buy up commercial failures, (dictionary.com), a fat cat ruining mexico's economy, monopolies and oligopolies, selfish, rabid about costs, shabby office space, smells of cigarets, eats from a folding table, makes 27 million a day, stingy, mathematicial