Carlos Slim: At home with the world's richest man

You have to be brave to take on the traffic in Mexico City. But the world’s richest man, at the wheel of his car, certainly relishes a challenge. With a convoy of bodyguards following closely behind in blacked-out 4x4s, his navy Mercedes darts across the lanes.

“Would you like me to scare you?” he says with a twinkle in his eye, accelerating suddenly and laughing at my braced position as we jostle through the congested streets.

This is not what I had expected when I was granted a rare interview with Carlos Slim Helú.

But Mr Slim is no ordinary multi-billionaire. His 42-year-old son Marco Antonio – “Tony” – sitting in the back of the car, laughs when I ask if his father normally drives himself around. “Always,” he replies.

Despite his $53.5 billion (£32.9 billion) fortune, the 71-year-old lives in a modest six-bedroom house a mile from his office, and has no interest in flashy super-yachts or palatial houses around the world.

His grey pinstripe suit may be made by Brioni, the fine Italian tailors, but his watch is a very ordinary-looking plain dial with a leather strap. His black leather loafers are shiny, but no more brilliant than any other self-respecting Mexican businessman’s.

Indeed, his only concessions to luxury are a fondness for Cuban cigars, a box of which sits on the coffee table in his office, and a passion for fine art. A new museum to house his vast collection is due to open in Mexico City next week, and the quality is evident from a visit to his office.

In the lobby of his headquarters, housed in an unassuming building in the city’s upmarket business district, is a bronze of Michelangelo’s Pietà, while the walls are covered with Van Goghs, Renoirs and El Grecos.

A Rodin sits outside his door – one of the 380 in his possession, the largest number in private hands in the world. It is the definition of a “money no object” collection.

Carlos Slim has made his fortune through a vast conglomeration of companies, particularly in telecommunications. Last year, according to Forbes, he overtook Bill Gates (with a fortune of $53 billion) to become the world’s richest man, partly due to the huge success of his América Móvil phone company. It is the first time in 16 years that the world’s richest man has not been an American.

Mr Slim’s sprawling empire also encompasses banking, retail, mining, construction, restaurants, printing and insurance. His critics complain that he runs monopolies, squeezing out competition and forcing up prices, and that he benefited disproportionately from the cheap privatisation of state industries. His supporters say that he is a classic old-fashioned businessman with an eye for an undervalued company.

The reach of his dominion is so large that the average Mexican will wake up on sheets bought from a Slim-owned store; buy their morning bread from a Slim-owned bakery; and drive to work in a Slim-insured car. They will call friends on a Slim-owned mobile phone, lunch at a Slim-owned restaurant, and smoke Slim-owned cigarettes. It is little wonder that the country is referred to as “Slimlandia”.

But the King of Slimlandia limits his roaming to a tiny corner of the realm.The Lomas de Chapultepec area, in the western hills of the city, was built in the 1930s and designed to house Mexico City’s elite in elegant mansions among tree-lined boulevards. His business is here, as is his home.

Driving from the office, he points to the house he has lived in for the past 38 years – three miles from where he was born.

We sweep through the streets, while Mr Slim on speaker-phone dictates a letter in heavily accented English to the film director George Lucas via his secretary, Silvia.

“It was great to see you so unexpectedly the other day,” he says. “You should come to Mexico, and we can spend some time together.” Then, correcting himself: “No, change that. That sounds too gay.”

He puts on some music – Sarah Brightman singing Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina.

“You like the music?” he asks. Yes, I say, but play me something you like – something Mexican.

He scrolls through the computer screen on the dashboard, and settles on Los Bukis – a band of 1970s Mexican crooners. His son mock rolls his eyes at his father’s kitsch taste.

We slow down as we draw closer to his childhood home, with Mr Slim pointing out the streets where he used to play baseball. Fanatical about the game, he is a regular at the New York Yankees and has an encyclopaedic knowledge of match statistics.

“I love baseball. And American Football, too. But not rugby. I used to play a lot, here on the street corner.”

Do you still play any sports?

“Yes. Highball and box spring,” he says with a grin, referring to cocktails and mattresses.

We pull into the drive of his childhood home – a two-storey house, almost gothic in its exterior, set behind a metal gate and surrounding wall, guarded by smartly-suited men.

The house hasn’t been lived in for over 20 years, but is still very much part of their lives. When Carlos Slim Domit, the 43-year-old eldest son, married in October, the family gathered in the house for wedding photos – which now sit on the desk in Mr Slim’s office.

“My parents’ house is very beautiful – it’s full of amazing things which we conserve,” he says. “It has an artistic side. The ceilings are painted, the stuccoes. It’s part of me.”

Inside, it is a lovingly preserved museum to Mr Slim’s youth. The brown-hued walls are lined with family photos, stiff-looking portraits of his five siblings, and a huge oil painting of Julián Slim, Mr Slim’s father.

“That painting was done when my father was 32,” he explains. “But I think he looks much older. Like he was 52.”

Slim Senior emigrated to Mexico from Lebanon in 1902, fleeing conscription in the Ottoman Empire. In 1911 he established a dry goods store before buying property, becoming a successful businessman.

He married Linda Helú in 1926, who was also the daughter of Lebanese immigrants. Her father José had published the first Arabic magazine in Mexico. A framed poem written by José Helú is on a wall, which Mr Slim says was written on his deathbed, found grasped in his hand after he had passed away.

It is a beautiful poem, stirring verses telling the importance of being surrounded by your family. Mr Slim knows the lines by heart, reciting the words of his grandfather from the corner of the dimly lit room, standing beside a huge ancient television.

He moves across the floor, showing off an old cylinder music box which still plays a twangy tune.

In the living room sits a pianola. Mr Slim lifts up the lid, and starts to play. “I can’t really play much, but it was one of those pianos that played itself. When I was little, I used to pretend to be playing it to make my parents laugh.”

Aged 12, Mr Slim was already following in his father’s footsteps, and made his first purchase of government bonds. Slim Senior taught the young Carlos the values of book-keeping, teaching him how to read financial sheets and keep records. It is something that Mr Slim has kept with him all his life.

His office doesn’t have a computer, with the tycoon preferring to keep all his data in meticulous notebooks. It does have a photograph of his father, though, facing his desk.

“My parents weren’t artistic, but I was always surrounded by beautiful things. And Mexico is a country which has experienced thousands of years of art and culture. From the pre-Hispanic times to the colonial era – all the buildings, churches, plazas. In Mexico there is that atmosphere.

“I studied engineering in the national university, the Universidad Autonóma, in San Ildefonso. There is art everywhere, murals on the walls. It’s beautiful. The artistic part of us all – I think that the easiest way to appreciate this – is through architecture. Architecture is very impressive; the beauty of buildings, temples.

“When I was little I went to the [Aztec] pyramids with my parents. And I remember feeling such admiration, being so impressed. And proud of the Mexicans who had made them.”

He points to a wooden bureau, and asks me to open it. Inside is a wireless radio, seemingly straight from a 1940s’ film set, and he laughs at my amazement – enjoying showing off the memories of his childhood, frozen in time.

He walks over to a large wooden cabinet, with a collection of wine glasses inside. It was owned, he says, by Porfirio Díaz, president of Mexico from 1876 to 1911.

“In high school, I loved history. I also loved cosmography, algebra. Mexico is so rich in culture and history, and I have always enjoyed that.”

We return to the car, and drive past the house that his late wife Soumaya grew up in – an attractive but unremarkable detached house several streets from his childhood home. Mr Slim met Soumaya Domit Gemayel when he was 24 – their mothers, both of Lebanese-Mexican ancestry, were friends – and they married in 1966.

The wedding photos – Mr Slim in bow tie and Soumaya, in her wedding dress with a long sweeping train – are framed on the walls of the Slim family home.

A faded photo of Soumaya sits on his desk, the glass in its round frame cracked with age.

Mrs Slim, who was said to be the love of his life, died in 1999 from kidney problems. The couple had six children – Carlos, Marco Antonio, Patrick, Soumaya, Vanessa and Johanna – most of whom work in his empire.

It was his wife Soumaya, Mr Slim says, who really taught him about sculpture and paintings.

“She was very sensitive to art,” he explains. “For our honeymoon we went to lots of galleries. The first time I went to Europe, in 1964, I went to galleries alone. In the UK, the British Museum, the National Gallery, and I loved the National History Museum. That was 1964.

"Then in 1966 was my honeymoon, and we also went to England. We went to Greece, New York, then we went by boat to Naples, Spain, France. It was about 40 days, seeing different places, cities, countryside.”

On their return, the couple attended an auction to buy furniture for their new house. And it was then that Mr Slim purchased his first painting – a 16th-century Flemish work, showing a scene of lions and Christians battling the Moors. Although it was an anonymous work, not considered a great piece, it hung in the kitchen as he wanted to look at it all the time.

This was to lay the foundations for the Museo Soumaya, which will launch with a glittering cocktail party on February 28. All of the heads of state from Latin American countries have been invited, and guests will include Larry King, Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez, fashion designer Oscar de la Renta, Queen Noor of Jordan, former Spanish president Felipe González, his friends the Rothschilds, and hopefully Bill Clinton, with whom Mr Slim has launched a series of charitable initiatives.

“When you buy a collection, you have to exhibit it,” he says, as we drive towards the museum. “You have to share it. When I started buying art, in Mexico the museums didn’t have many European works. Periodically there would be exhibitions that came to Mexico, but it was a small percentage of the total art on show.

“So that was when I began to buy European art. And also the prices were very different – it’s not like now, when they are so high, unimaginably high.

“Now those people who can’t travel abroad have somewhere they can go to see great European art. That was the thinking behind buying European art.”

The museum will house over 66,000 pieces, mainly European and Mexican art. From Cézanne to Renoir, Van Gogh to Matisse, da Vinci to Rivera, the jaw-dropping collection is the result of many years of passionate study and accumulation.

It also includes the world’s largest collection of pre-Hispanic and colonial coins, plus a vast collection of letters and historical documents. Visitors will be able to read Christopher Columbus’s letters, or study the writings of Hernán Cortés and the Catholic Kings of Spain.

For the past 16 years, the collection has been housed in a museum in the south of the capital. Its director, Alfonso Miranda, put the value at easily over $700 million (£435 million).

The new museum will be an enormous structure designed by Mr Slim’s son-in-law Fernando Romero. The striking cloud-shaped gallery has been designed to twist in the middle, echoing the curves of a Rodin sculpture, Mr Slim explains.

The shining silver structure will be covered with 16,000 hexagonal pieces to catch the light, and is the centrepiece of a $750 million development at Plaza Carso, revitalising a previously rundown and dangerous northern part of the city.

“He is a great architect – very young, but very talented. I put him in charge of it,” Mr Slim explains of his son-in-law. “And then I told him: there are two architects on this project. He said who? And I said: you and me!”

It was not bluster. The businessman is obsessive with every detail of his gallery. The marble floor tiles have been brought from Greece, and he proudly points out that they are of exceptionally high quality without imperfections in the stone.

“It’s his hobby, his obsession,” says Eduardo Solar, the project supervisor. “Every day he comes in here with new ideas, checking that everything is perfect. His attention to detail is incredible.”

Aida Pavón, the construction manager, points out a speck of paint on a wall. “Yesterday he was in here and spotted that, and said it wasn’t good enough. I just see him come in and watch his eyes scanning the building, because I know that wherever his gaze settles, he is going to want something improving or tweaking.”

Mr Slim has already chosen the position of his favourite work – The Thinker, which now sits inside the vestibule, covered in bubble-wrap, contemplating the army of hard-hatted workers who scurry past to finish the project in time.

Facing that will hang another favourite: a giant mural – Naturaleza Muerta – by the Mexican Rufino Tamayo.

His late wife was a particular admirer of Rodin – one of the earliest pieces the couple bought was Rodin’s Mask of the Man with the Broken Nose – and Mr Slim has eagerly adopted her enthusiasm for the French sculptor.

“Rodin is one of the greatest sculptors in history, in all humanity. And they are amazing sculptures.

"He is a great, and he rediscovered – well, not rediscovered, that wasn’t necessary – but he didn’t depend so much on classic art, which has been very influential, but he was inspired more by Michelangelo.

"They are very strong, the expression is very strong. He is one of the greatest.”

Mr Slim refuses to discuss the value of his collection, or individual works, but the museum’s director said that the most valuable piece was probably from da Vinci’s studio, Madonna dei Fusi (Madonna of the Yarnwinder).

The Duke of Buccleuch had his version of the painting stolen from his Scottish castle in 2003; its value was estimated at between £30-£50 million.

Mr Slim oversees all the purchases. While he has bought some entire collections from people who want their selection to remain intact – on the table in his office, a handwritten note offers him the chance to inspect a collection of Diego Riveras for sale – he bought most of the European works one by one.

“The auctioneers send me the catalogues, and so I go through them and chose the works.”

And if he could add one work to the collection?

“I don’t necessarily think it’s important to belong to the collection – just that it can be appreciated. Many sculptures aren’t lent much. But there are an innumerable number of sculptures that would be a dream for any museum. The Winged Victory of Samothrace, or Venus di Milo. Some great Greek sculptures. Some bronzes.

“Another of my favourites is a reproduction of Pietà, which is from the 20th century. They made two copies, and this is number three. The original is in the Vatican. It is going to be, from what I understand, the first time that this has ever been exhibited in a museum.”

With such an extensive and personal collection, Mr Slim admits that sometimes he comes in at night to wander the museum, and see his works unobstructed. “They are there to be enjoyed.”

It is now night-time at the museum’s site, and still the construction team are working on the final touches. It is also a Monday which, every week, means dinner with the family. So it is time for us to leave.

Mr Slim stands outside the gallery, named after his late wife, housing a collection that had been directed by his daughter, in a building designed by his son-in-law.

In a few days this highly personal project will open its doors to anyone who wants to enter, for free, and share Mr Slim’s pleasure in great works.

“I believe that we have to find means for all desirable things to be universally accessible. Culture. Entertainment. Sport. Communication. Health. Food. Housing. The fundamental things.”

“I was at Windsor Castle not that long ago,” he muses. “And I had forgotten how many amazing drawings are there, especially the da Vincis.

“It’s such a shame they are not all on display.”