Who is the Richest Person in the World?

The world is always fascinated by the wealthiest people and is interested in knowing the ways of how they acquired their wealth. A very famous business magazine, called Forbes, every year keeps a track of the wealthiest person in the world. According to the Forbes Rich List 2010, the individual who was conferred the title of being the richest man in the world 2010 is Carlos Slim Helu, who surpassed American software czar, Bill Gates, the owner of Microsoft by a meager difference of USD 500 million. Bill Gates is followed by Warren Buffett, the owner of Berkshire Hathaway.

Wealthy People Across the Globe

The wealth of an individual is calculated according to the profit his company makes, in terms of shares and its net worth in the market. Given below is the list of the top ten richest people in the world, with their net worth, calculated in billion US dollars:

Rank	Individual	Name of the Company	Net Worth (in billion USD)
1	Carlos Slim Helu, Mexico	America Movil	74
2	Bill Gates, USA	Microsoft	56
3	Warren Buffett, USA	Berkshire Hathaway	50
4	Bernard Arnault, France	LVMH	41
5	Lawrence Ellison, USA	Oracle	39.5
6	Lakshmi Mittal, India	ArcelorMittal	31.1
7	Amancio Ortega, Spain	Inditex	31
8	Eike Batista, Brazil	EBX, MMX, OGX, MPX, Mr. Lam, Porto de Peruibe	30
9	Mukesh Ambani, India	Reliance Industries	27
10	Christy Walton & Family, USA	Wal-Mart	26.5

In the year 2009, Carlos Slim was in the third place in the list of the world's richest people but jumped to the first position after the acquisition of Mexico's national telephone company. Let's see more about the life and business of Carlos Slim, who is the richest person in the world right now.

Carlos Slim Helu: The World's Wealthiest Person

Carlos Slim Helu, currently had very humble beginnings. Carlos Slim, the youngest of six sons, was born on January 28, 1940 in Mexico City, Mexico. The son of Lebanese immigrant parents, Yusef Salim Haddad and Linda Helu, Carlos studied engineering at a well-known college in Mexico, the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Carlos first tasted success when he was 26 years old. At that time his net worth was $40 million and from then on there was no looking back. In the year 1967, Carlos married Soumaya Domit Gemayel and sired six children. His sons also assist their father in running their conglomerate. Carlos achieved financial success by finding undervalued companies and working towards making them profitable. In 1990, Carlos overtook a telecom company named Telefonos de Mexico (Telmex), from the Mexican government. Though in the beginning he was criticized for increasing the call tariffs, he improved the services provided by the telecom company and also offered many services like local and long distance calls, a telephone directory, Internet services and mobile phone services. He acquired Prodigy, an Internet Service Provider (ISP) in the US and owns Mexico's largest Internet Service Provider.

The success story of this business tycoon has been published in many newspapers and magazines. The Wall Street Journal ran a cover story about this successful businessman on August 4, 2007 profiling about the person and his business skills. The article also foretold his success of acquiring wealth and becoming the world's richest person. This can be seen in the line taken from the article, 'While the market value of his stake in publicly traded companies could decline at any time, at the moment he is probably wealthier than Bill Gates.' Forbes magazine ranked Carlos as the third richest person, as on March 11, 2009. A year later on March 10, 2010, Carlos had a net worth of US $53.5 billion and surpassed Gates to be the wealthiest man in the world. He also has many achievements to his credit like being the vice president of the Mexican Stock Exchange and the president of Mexican Association of Brokerage Houses. He also headed the Latin American Committee of the New York Stock Exchange. Carlos owns 90 percent of the telephone lines of Mexico, also controls Telcel which is a Mexican mobile company and has emerged leader in the telecom industry. In view of the current scenario, Slim is still the richest man, with the value of his corporate holdings estimating around USD 74 billion (as of March 2011).

Carlos Slim Helu, the world's wealthiest person, is the first non-American in 16 years, to become the globe's wealthiest man. Though there are some speculations about him that he thinks about nothing other than business after his wife's demise, Carlos Slim is unmoved by his fortune and believes in simple living and high thinking.