SIX CHILDREN GETS OWNERSHIP TO WORLD BILLIONAIRE BUSINESS EMPIRE

 Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helú has been quietly giving large chunks of his business empire to his six children. The most recent transaction took place last month when Slim Helú gave the majority of his shares in Grupo Financiero Inbursa (GFInbursa), a holding company that offers retail and commercial banking services through its subsidiaries, to two of his daughters.
In a statement filed with Mexico’s Stock Market (Bolsa), Slim reported that on July 5, 2012 he signed a “donation contract” with two daughters to give them 638,674,896 shares of class “A” stock. The document from Slim indicated that each one received a different percentage of shares. Vanessa Paola Slim Domit, Slim’s oldest daughter, was the main beneficiary, receiving 71.13% of the total shares transferred in the latest gift. This increased her ownership stake of Inbursa from 4.38% to 11.33%. In monetary terms, based on a price of 32.70 Mexican pesos per share, the transfer amounts to around 21 billion Mexican pesos, or $1.6 billion. The document doesn’t reveal the name of the second beneficiary.
In the two-page memorandum, Slim noted that the transactions were “transfers free of payment” therefore they didn’t require stock trading. The gift, which was approved by the Bolsa, reduced the world’s second richest man’s stake in Inbursa to 0.032%.


Without giving further details, Slim reported that he also reached a donation agreement with  “another group of my children” to increase their direct ownership in Inmobiliaria Carso (InCarso), and their indirect ownership in Inbursa, since InCarso, a real state holding company, indirectly owns shares of Inbursa.
Transferring his inheritance to his descendents is the kind of estate planning that a man Slim’s age –73 years— is expected to be doing. A living inheritance will avoid potential infighting among his descendents. Arturo Elías Ayub, Slim’s spokesperson and son-in law, did not answer an e-mail requesting comment.
J. Jesús Rangel, a business columnist who first reported the donations in the Mexican newspaper Milenio, said that the transfers to the daughters seek to equalize their respective share ownership with that of their siblings.
Rangel believes that Slim has already bequeathed most of his wealth. “I don’t know the percentage they all have, but based on the little information made public, they [the children] appeared to have equal parts of shares at least of class ‘A’ stock, which is the type needed to control a company. I suspect that the same has happened or will happen with the rest of the enterprises,” Rangel said in an email.
Slim has been quoted as saying that it’s more important to leave his children with the responsibility of managing a company than with a pile of cash. According to Grupo Carso’s 2012 report filed with Mexico’s Bolsa, sons Carlos, Patrick and Marco Antonio Slim Domit, each owned directly or indirectly more than 10% of Grupo Carso. Slim Helú and daughters Soumaya, Vanessa and Johanna, also owned an equal percentage. In addition, the seven jointly possess 10% of the shares in the trust run by Inbursa and InCarso. Added together, the report shows that the family controls 79.61% of Grupo Carso,  a global conglomerate.
Carlos Slim Helú, a Catholic whose wife died in 1999, is a strong believer in family values and is known to stay very close to his family. In a 2012 profile, FORBES reported that every Monday, Slim hosts dinner for his children and every Wednesday has lunch with his grandchildren. He has 20 grandchildren and one more on the way.
Since his heart operation in 1997, he has relinquished control over the daily operations of his many companies. His sons and son-in-laws have gained positions of authority in the family empire. Carlos, the eldest, deemed to play the leading and most visible role of the dynasty, is Chairman of Telmex and Grupo Carso; Patrick is Chairman of Inmobiliaria Carso, and Marco Antonio, the youngest son, is Inbursa’s Chairman.
Slim’s son-in-laws are involved directly or indirectly in the family business as well. Elías Ayub, Johanna’s husband, is Chief Officer of Relations with Investors and a board member of Telmex; Daniel Hajj Aboumrad, married to Vanessa, is América Móvil’s CEO; and Fernando Romero, a successful Mexican architect married to Soumaya, designed the building for Museo Soumaya, a premium art gallery owned by the Carlos Slim Foundation.
Slim is the world’s second richest man. Forbes currently places his net worth at $70 billion, a drop from Forbes’ $73 billion estimate in March 2013. Forbes’ estimate of Slim’s net worth includes the value of shares owned by his children