by Edward Helmore
Carlos Slim
Carlos Slim, the Mexican banking and telecoms tycoon sometimes ranked as the world’s richest man, has said his £12m-£14m stake in the Independent was a mistaken investment — “a bad one”.
The comments come in a wide-ranging profile in the New Yorker, designed to investigate the 69-year-old’s plans for the New York Times Company, the troubled media group he provided with a $250m (£157m) credit lifeline this year.
Slim’s comments over his 2008 investment in Sir Anthony O’Reilly’s Independent News & Media – long thought to be orchestrated by O’Reilly’s arch rival Denis O’Brien – come soon after the troubled media group agreed a “standstill deal” with creditors that will end on 26 June.
But Slim showed no similar regret over his stake in the New York Times.
“We think it’s the best newspaper,” he said. “The best brand … We believe in media content. We think the paper will disappear, but not the content. The content will be more important.”
Slim indicated that he does not view his non-voting stake as a precursor to making a bid for outright ownership.
“Our business is to be the carriers,” Slim said, referring to his business as one of Latin and South America’s largest cellphone and broadband providers. “If I wanted to buy a newspaper, I would have done that fifty years ago…”
But there are fears the Times could file for bankruptcy within a year and, unless a new business model can found soon, that the entire industry may be on the brink of rapid contraction. Slim indicated that he was confident that major news brands will survive.
While many within the Times expressed concern that the controlling Sulzberger family preferred to make a deal with reputed monopolist Slim over a similar offer from former US record mogul David Geffen, Slim offered the New Yorker a glimpse into his thinking.
Investing in a downturn – a trick he has repeatedly used to build his empire – will give him an advantage over rivals who are hunkering down or do not have the liquidity to exploit the situation, the magazine said. In this context, Slim’s investment in the Times is a bet on the long-term value of journalism. “I think content and information are important for our new civilization”, he said. (The Guardian.co.uk).
