Mexican Businessman buys stake in NY Times Co.

While the U.S. economy seems to be shifting up and down with news of oil prices, hurricane Ike and Wall Street firms closing down, there is at least some interesting news.

Carlos Slim Helú, a 68-year old businessman from Mexico, recently purchased a 6.4 percent stake of the New York Times Co., which is worth close to $127 million.

When I read the story about Slim's purchasing a stake in the NY Times, I learned more about the richest people in the world. Much like in college football and college basketball where there is a top-25 listing of the best teams in the U.S., Forbes also keeps a close watch and updates who is the richest person in the world.

The top three, in terms of net worth, looks like this:
1. Warren Buffet, $62 billion
2. Carlos Slim Helú, $60 billion
3. Bill Gates, $58 billion

Slim is really no stranger to business dealings such as this as he has been involved with the Mexican Stock Exchange, Altria (formerly Philip Morris), SBC Communications (now a part of AT&T) and the now bankrupt CompUSA.

Slim is probably most known in the telecommunications industry because over 18 years ago he led a group of investors into buying two major Mexican companies in Telmex and Telnor. According to this article, it says that 9 out of 10 phone lines in Mexico are operated by Telmex. Telcel, Slim's mobile phone company, apparently operates 80 percent of all the cell phones used in Mexico. Slim has expanded to other areas such as in Latin America where his company, America Movil, has more than 100 million subscribers.

While Slim has been continuing his business ventures in other areas he has been accused of charging more for phone service compared to other companies and some believe that he is hurting the economy due to the lack of competition.

While everyone will continue to hear about how the economy is going through a rough period right now, it's good to hear some positive news regarding the well-being of a newspaper. Seems like the first bit of good news regarding a newspaper in a long time, at least to me.