Bet on world's richest man

Telefonos de Mexico (NYSE: TMX), controlled by Carlos Slim -- now the world’s richest man -- is a buy from The Buyback Letter. Here, David Fried looks at the Mexican phone firm.

“Telefonos de Mexico is the leading telecommunications company in Mexico, with more than 15 million telephone lines in service and more than 1 million Internet access accounts. Based in Mexico City, Telmex, as it is commonly called, controls more than 95% of Mexico's fixed-line telephone market and is a major provider of long-distance services.

“It is currently positioned as the regional market leader in telecommunications, and in recent years has bought telephone, cable and data transmission assets in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Peru.

“Formerly owned by the Mexican government, Telmex was privatized in 1990 and is now majority controlled by billionaire magnate Carlos Slim, the world’s third richest man.

"Slim is quite a character, and aside from the sheer magnitude of his $49 billion fortune, he also gained the most wealth in the last year ($19 billion). Slim has also invested in cigarettes, real estate, soda bottling, auto parts, and insurance, and, of course, made a fortune in telecom.

“He also is branching out to other countries. In 2005, Telmex spent $350 million to acquire the majority stake in Colombia's biggest phone company, and bought Chilean mobile telecom Smartcom for $472 million.

"In 2006 Verizon announced it was selling its Latin American and Caribbean operations to Telmex and another Slim-controlled company, in a $3.7 billion deal.

“Telmex provides total telecommunications services -- local and long distance wire service, wireless communications, multimedia network for video, audio and data, network engineering, digital wireless network access and Internet. TMX repurchased about 7.7% of its shares in the last 12 months.”

http://www.thestockadvisors.com/for-traders/buyback-bets-on-billionaire.html