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Carlos Slim Helú, one of the wealthiest people in the world, was born on January 28, 1940, in Mexico City to a family of Lebanese Christian immigrants. He became a billionaire after the economic crash of 1982 when he purchased investments at low prices that would later be extremely valuable. In 2000, he founded the Foundation for the Historic Centre of Mexico City to restore and save significant buildings. Working from the strong business foundation built by his father, Slim began his own career, as a trader, in Mexico and soon went on to start his own brokerage that invested in individual businesses. By 1965, his capital had grown big enough, that he was incorporating other companies or buying them outright. By 1966, he was already worth an estimated US$40 million and growing. Although his early career saw him investing in many different individual businesses, his main focus was construction, mining and real estate, and he continued to acquire businesses in those fields. During the 1970s he continued growing his empire by establishing and purchasing companies in various industries. By 1980, he had unified his various interests into the parent company ‘Grupo Galas’, which brought all of his holdings together. In 1982, the falling prices of oil caused the mostly oil-based economy of Mexico to suffer and collapse, as banks became nationalized and the value of the Mexican currency Peso plummeted. During the next few years of economic downturn, Slim increased his acquisition efforts and gained large shares in the Mexican branches of international companies, including a 50% share in ‘The Hershey Company’. In 1990, his conglomerate ‘Grupo Carso’ became a public company worldwide. This is also the year that he began extending his influence into telephone communications, working with ‘France Télécom’ and the ‘Southwestern Bell Corporation’, to buy the phone company ‘Telmex’ from the Mexican government. This was the start of what would end in an almost complete takeover of the nation's landline and eventually mobile phone service. After decades of purchasing the Mexican branches of many international companies, Slim's interests began to reach beyond Latin America. He developed a US branch of his phone company ‘Telmex’, and also purchased stake in ‘Tracfone’, a US based mobile company. He also underwent heart surgery, and began to back away from the daily workings of his business, passing the reins to children and family members.