Mexico Opens Telecom Market to Foreigners in Move to Break Up Monopolies Tim Johnson - McClatchy
go to original June 11, 2013

Carlos Slim may have to kiss a few of those pesos goodbye. (Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images)

MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s president signed into law a monopoly-busting telecommunications law Monday that’s expected to drive down telephone prices for consumers and cost the country’s richest man billions of dollars.

Carlos Slim, the tycoon whose America Movil SAB controls 70 percent of Mexico’s cellphone business and 80 percent of the country’s landlines, has seen his net worth plummet $5 billion since March, when the law was proposed, as investors sold off the company’s stock for fear of the law’s impact. The slump dropped Slim to second, behind Microsoft founder Bill Gates, in the competition to be the world’s richest man. The law’s implementation is likely to further undercut his business empire.

President Enrique Pena Nieto took less than three months to push the proposal through Congress, a sign of his race to obtain major changes before a broad pact of Mexico’s major political parties unravels. Moments before signing the measure into law, Pena Nieto said it would strengthen Mexican companies and favor consumers with lower prices. That, in turn, will attract foreign investment and speed economic growth, he said.

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