Can You Buy Anything in Mexico Without Paying Carlos Slim?

Technically, yes. But it's really, really hard

Author: Jan-Albert Hootsen

With a net worth of $72 billion, Carlos Slim Helú is Mexico’s richest man. Sure, Bill Gates now outranks him on the Forbes billionaire list. But the 74-year-old son of Lebanese immigrants is as influential as ever. He’s a bona fide tycoon with holdings that span industries such as real estate, retail, tobacco, telecom, energy and the media. He even owns Latin America’s largest aquarium, which opened last week in Mexico City.

Not so slim pickings: A tour of Mexico City's Inbursa Aquarium, which Carlos Slim owns.

REUTERS/Tomas Bravo

Slim’s empire is so vast and varied that he often jokes he can’t keep track of all his companies. And some Mexicans say you can’t spend a normal day in the Mexican capital without giving at least one peso to the mustachioed oligarch.
Last week I tried to debunk this theory. The result: I failed. Miserably. Avoiding Slim, it seems, is practically impossible. It means not reading The New York Times (he owns about 8 percent of the newspaper´s shares). It means not taking a shower or going to the bathroom because the copper tubing in my apartment was mined by Slim’s company, Frisco. Same goes for the electrical wiring in the walls, so turning on the lights is out of the question.

Slim chance: Trying to avoid companies that aren't owned by Carlos Slim is difficult in Mexico. Above, the headquarters of Telmex, Slim's telecom behemoth.

REUTERS/Daniel Aguilar

Working in any of the thousands of coffee houses in Mexico City isn´t an option either. The vast majority of them use wireless Internet provided by Slim’s Telmex company.
Going shopping poses some serious restrictions, too. Slim owns Sears and Sanborns, two of the country´s largest department store chains. He also owns Saks Fifth Avenue, as well as the music store chain Mixup. There are also shopping malls in Mexico City, San Luis Potosí, Mexicali and Villahermosa where I can’t shop at all because they are partly run by Inmobiliaria Carso, Slim’s real estate firm.
I can hardly even travel without paying Slim, since I tend to ride a bicycle through Mexico City’s crowded streets, and my bike was made by Bicicletas de México, whose majority shareholder is…yes, you guessed it.
About the only thing you can do, it seems, is have a meal at Peces, a chain of seafood restaurants owned by the pundit Marco Rascón. He’s so critical of the Mexican billionaire that even his menus sarcastically hail Peces as “the only place not owned by Carlos Slim.” I sat down with Rascón for a meal late in the afternoon last week, after I gave up on trying to avoid the Mexican billionaire.

Is Slim shady? Marco Rascón jokes that his restaurants are the only places in Mexico City not owned by the Mexican billionaire.

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If there’s anyone who knows about Slim’s influence, it’s Rascón. After all, he is the guy who calculated in 2006 that, on average, every Mexican spends $1.50 per day on Slim’s goods and services, for a total of roughly $140 million a day. Like many Mexicans, Rascón wonders how it’s possible that half of the country is living in poverty, while the world’s second richest man is making money everywhere they look. But unlike many Mexicans, he doesn’t secretly admire the man for his ability to work the system and skirt Mexico’s laws banning monopolies.
“Of course it’s not a good thing that Carlos Slim is so omnipresent,” he says. “It says a lot about the way power is divided in the Mexican economy that Slim could accumulate so much of it.”
The power, however, may be catching up to Slim and his overstretched empire. The Federal Telecommunications Institute, a new government anti-monopoly watchdog, said in April that Slim’s telecom businesses are monopolies. Slim will be forced to wait at least two years before he ventures into the television market. To top it off, his construction company IDEAL was denied a lucrative contract last month to build a highway in the State of Mexico, which borders the capital.

Slim does sports: The Mexican billionaire, center, owns both soccer teams that vied for the Mexican soccer championship this year.

REUTERS/Henry Romero

It’s unclear exactly what’s causing Slim’s recent setbacks. But Mexico’s mogul of moguls is unlikely to fade away anytime soon. In fact, he’s branching out into the sports world. In 2012, he bought a stake in Pachuca and León, two top-tier teams in this soccer-crazy nation. Both competed in the finals of the league this year, making the Mexican soccer championship a wholly Carlos Slim affair. And for those who like other sports, don’t fret. Slim acquired the exclusive rights in Mexico last year to televise the 2016 Summer Olympics.
In other words, whether you’re watching soccer, making a phone call or standing in front of a giant tank of the world’s most exotic fish, Carlos Slim is going to be right there, his hand outstretched. And you’ll have to pay the man