Carlos Slim Builds Bet on Firms Behind Mexico’s Mega Oil Project
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(Bloomberg) -- Carlos Slim is building up investments in companies behind Mexico’s largest oil exploration effort just months after his business empire acquired a stake in a firm involved in the same project.
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The Mexican billionaire’s family investment firm, Control Empresarial de Capitales, has accumulated stakes worth about $327 million in Talos Energy Inc. and Harbour Energy Plc through at least half-a-dozen transactions since October, with the most recent this month, according to regulatory filings.
Slim’s Grupo Carso SAB conglomerate separately completed a deal in September to buy a minority position in a unit of Houston-based Talos that allowed it to enter the Zama field, one of Mexico’s most promising energy projects. Both the US oil and gas company and Harbour own stakes.
“Talos invited us to come in as partners in the Zama field,” Arturo Elias Ayub, Slim’s son-in-law and spokesman, said in a phone interview. “We’ve been active participants in the oil industry for 15 years now.”
The additional investments in both Talos and Harbour were “purely for financial reasons,” he said.
A spokesperson for Harbour declined to comment, while a representative for Talos didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Slim, 83, is Latin America’s richest person with a $102.1 billion fortune, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, largely through telecommunications giant America Movil SAB de CV.
He’s expanding his energy bets in Mexico at a time when President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has rolled back some of the previous administration’s opening of the industry. Obrador has insisted that the government maintain control of key assets through Petroleos Mexicanos and utility CFE.
Peso Boom
Slim has added about $27.7 billion to his fortune this year amid a boom in the Mexican peso that’s helped to boost the stock of companies in his business empire, which range from construction to operating restaurants and shops. His wealth jumped above $100 billion last week for the first time, making him the world’s 11th-richest person, according to Bloomberg’s wealth index.
Read More: Mexico’s Slim Joins $100 Billion Club Thanks to Super Peso
The Slim family’s investment firm first disclosed a holding in Talos in August and has since more than doubled it to a 12.2% stake valued at about $212 million.
Control Empresarial de Capitales first surfaced as a Harbour shareholder in October and now holds a 5.1% stake in the London-based company worth about $115 million, according to a Dec. 6 filing.
Read More: Billionaire Carlos Slim Buys Into Mega Oil Project in Mexico
Slim and his family also own a major stake in US oil refiner PBF Energy Inc. even after offloading shares last year as the company rebounded from a pandemic-era slump.
Talos and Slim’s Mexico City-based conglomerate share a roughly 17% stake in Zama, while Harbour holds 12.4% and Germany’s Wintershall Dea almost 20%. Petroleos Mexicanos, the state-run energy firm, holds a majority stake in the project, which received regulatory approval in June and is expected to account for about 10% of Mexico’s total oil output.
--With assistance from Daniel Cancel and Pui Gwen Yeung.
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