Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim overtakes Bill Gates as richest manA 27 percent surge in the share price of America Movil, Latin America's largest cell phone operator, controlled by Slim, from March to June made him close to $8.6 billion wealthier than Gates, said Eduardo Garcia in Sentido Comun, the online financial publication he founded. Garcia estimated that Gates was worth $59.2 billion.
Forbes magazine reported in April that Slim had overtaken billionaire investor Warren Buffett for the No. 2 spot in the world's richest stakes but was still behind Gates.
Mexico has a huge rich-poor divide, with a tiny elite holding most of the country's wealth and around half the population living on less than $5 a day.
Forbes bumped up Slim because gains from his holding company Carso and fixed-line telecom Telmex added to the Mexican's fortune while shares of Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. fell in the same period.
Three months ago, Sentido Comun's Garcia begged to differ with Forbes and calculated Slim's wealth as more than Gates' -- but only by a whisker. Now he says there is no doubt whose fortune is bigger at current share values.
Garcia's Sentido Comun, which translates as "common sense," reckons Slim and his family own a fortune equivalent to 8 percent of Mexico's gross domestic product. For Gates to be worth 8 percent of the U.S. economy, his fortune would have to grow to more than $13 trillion, 17 times his current wealth, according to Sentido Comun.
http://www.eitb24.com/new/en/B24_56076/Business/WORLDS-WEALTH-Mexican-tycoon-Carlos-Slim-overtakes-Bill/
