Lee-Chin falls off billionaire list - Carlos Slim gets richer

Michael Lee-Chin has failed to make the cut on Forbes 2011 list of billionaires published Wednesday.

The magazine said that those who were dropped from the list - numbering some 47 people worldwide - either experienced declines in the value of their assets, or were culled because Forbes had got new information about their holdings.

Lee-Chin, who owns a number of Caribbean assets including National Commercial Bank, narrowly made the list in 2010 when his net worth fell to US$1 billion.

He made his fortune in mutual funds, but sold out his business, AIC Limited, to Manulife in 2009.

Requests for comment from Lee-Chin were not forthcoming up to press time.

The current list of 1,210 billionaires control an estimated US$4.5 trillion of wealth.

Mexican telecoms magnate Carlos Slim, 71, widened his lead over other billionaires on Forbes' list - the same day his flagship company said he is a victim of monopolistic practices.

Slim's fortune was estimated to have risen to US$74 billion, well ahead of Bill Gates' US$56 billion and investor Warren Buffett's US$50 billion. French luxury-goods magnate Bernard Arnault was fourth with US$41 billion.

Slim, the owner of Claro, gained the most in the past year.

His wealth increased US$20.5 billion from last year's estimate of US$53.5 billion by Forbes, which attributed the increase to a rise in Mexican stock prices as well as successful mining and real-estate projects carried out through his Grupo Carso conglomerate.

A total of 332 Asians made the list, surpassing Europe's 300 for the first time. Moscow, with 79 billionaires, racked up more berths on the list than any other city in the world.

The United States still has the lead in total number of billionaires, with 413 of the 1,210 on the list.

Despite Slim's wealth, his flagship company, Telmex, alleged Wednes-day that he is a victim. Telmex filed a complaint with Mexico's regulatory agency alleging that two Mexican TV networks allied with his competitors in the cellphone business squeezed his company out of television advertising.

The television networks, cell and cable carriers countered with their own complaint, accusing Slim's Telmex of using its control of the country's landlines to charge high fees for completing cell calls to competing carriers.

The Federal Competition Com-mission estimates Telmex's interconnection fees are 43.5 percent higher than in other developed countries.

It says that makes cellphone calls 18.3 per cent more expensive than necessary and may cost consumers as much as US$6 billion a year.

But the commission also notes that Mexico's two big TV networks control 96.8 percent of television audiences and almost all TV ad revenues.

The commission has not yet ruled on either of the two complaints filed Wednesday.

Slim built his fortune in a country where most people - 59.5 per cent - are paid US$15 a day or less, and 38.7 per cent get US$10 or less.

He did so in part by focusing on selling services to the poorer and underserved parts of the market. For example, he sells prepaid cellphone service in amounts of as little as US$2 or US$3, a service widely used by people whose income is too low or variable to afford a monthly calling plan.

Slim is the son of an immigrant shopkeeper who amassed a range of retail, industrial and telecoms holdings and has ventured into oil, construction and infrastructure sectors.

A civil engineer by training, he has bought up troubled or government-owned companies of all types, fixed them and resold them for huge profits.

- Gleaner and AP reports