National broadband just Slim pickings as world's richest man pays flying visit

CARLOS Slim Helu could pick up the tab for last year's federal budget deficit.

Mr Helu's Gulfstream V at Sydney airport. Picture: James Croucher

CARLOS Slim Helu could pick up the tab for last year's federal budget deficit.

He could comfortably bankroll the entire $43 billion National Broadband Network - and easily account for the inevitable cost blowouts.

He could buy out fellow rich listers Bill Gates or Warren Buffett.

In fact, when he walks into a room, he brings the entire GDP of Luxembourg.

But the richest man in the world - who Forbes says is worth $US53.5 billion ($55.4bn) and who touched down in Sydney yesterday for a fleeting visit - is not known for ostentatious displays of wealth. The plastic wristwatch-wearing Mexican grandfather lives in a relatively modest six-bedroom home in his native country, and is said to favour home-cooked meals over the world's finest restaurants. Even Mr Slim's twin-engine Gulfstream 550 business jet, currently parked at Sydney airport, is a relative toy in a world where those "less fortunate" have their own Boeing 747. (A second hand one will set you back about $US35m-$40m.) And despite deriving much of his personal wealth on the back of his telecommunications empire, Mr Slim's preferred methods of doing business are almost archaic. The 70-year-old does not use a computer, and likes to conduct business briefings with pen and paper.

Quirks aside, there is unlikely to be a politician of any stripe who will not take a keen interest in what Mr Slim has to say about the NBN when he offers his views on the scheme at a press conference in Sydney today.

Last night, there was speculation that Mr Slim had already met senior figures from the NBN Co in Sydney, but a company spokeswoman would not confirm or deny any encounter.

"We do not disclose such matters," she said. "You would have to ask his PR people."

Mr Slim, the son of a Lebanese Maronite Christian who left that country in 1902 to arrive penniless in Mexico City aged 14, controls Telmex and Telnor, the fixed-line and mobile phone companies that were sold by tender by the Mexican government in 1990. The two companies respectively control 90 per cent and 80 per cent of the Mexican market.

But he's not just a telecommunications tycoon.

Like many seriously rich people, he's approached almost daily with investment proposals, and in 2008 he became the biggest shareholder in The New York Times newspaper outside the controlling Sulzberger family.

Mr Slim is in Sydney as a guest of US magazine publisher Steve Forbes. Today he will be presented with an award by his friend whose eponymous Forbes magazine is best known for compiling lists of the world's richest people.

The Malcolm S. Forbes Lifetime Achievement Award, named after Mr Forbes's father, was last year presented to S. Robson Walton of the Wal-Mart family in the US, who was 18th on the Forbes rich list with a paltry $US19.8bn.

Yesterday, Mr Slim spent about three hours at the Forbes CEO conference at Sydney's Four Seasons Hotel and after a brief meeting with NSW Premier Kristina Keneally he played tourist. With a posse of bodyguards, he took in the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Observatory Hill, The Rocks and the Opera House - from inside a black Audi. True, he didn't once emerge from behind the tinted windows of his late-model black Audi while ticking all the tourist boxes.

But it's also true that Mr Slim is not your average tourist.