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 News from Around the Americas | June 2007 
Slim Gives $100M to Clinton Project
 Gareth Dodd - Xinhuanet
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| | Frank Giustra, a Canadian businessman who pledged a minimum of $100 million to the effort, speaks as former Presisent Bill Clinton and Carlos Slim Helu look on during a press conference announcing that the Clinton foundation is launching a new sustainable development initiative in Latin America, the Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative, financed by the prominent philanthropists Giustra Helu, in New York, June 21, 2007. (Reuters/Shannon Stapleton) |
A Mexican billionaire with holdings in telecom, tobacco, banking and more, announced Friday he will contribute 100 million U.S. dollars to a new sustainable development project put into place by former President Bill Clinton's foundation.
Canadian businessman Frank Giustra also pledged a minimum of 100 million dollars and half of his future earnings in the natural resources sector.
The project, called the Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative, will focus on Latin America and other parts of the developing world and will work with the private sector - specifically, a group of mining companies - to address social, economic and environmental issues in a sustainable and cost-effective way.
Slim, 67, was worth 49 billion dollars when Forbes locked in net worths for its annual billionaires ranking. Two months - and 4 billion dollars - later, he overtook Warren Buffett to become the world's second-richest man. Slim's wealth continues to soar, largely on the strength of his wireless telecom company, America Movil, of which he owns 30 percent.
Slim is a controversial figure in Mexico, both for the high charges levied by Telmex - his fixed-line phone company - and the scale of his wealth in a country where per capita income is less than 6,800 dollars a year. A year ago he infused one of his foundations, which had long been neglected, with 1.8 billion dollars.
In the fall he pledged to donate up to 10 billion dollars to health and education programs over the next four years. Former President Clinton, introducing Slim's latest donation at a press conference today in Harlem, described the Mexican titan as "the most important philanthropist you've never heard of." |
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