Slim and Yunus, united by microcredit

 

What do the richest man in the world, Mexican magnate and telecommunication tycoon Carlos Slim Helú who has always made profit his reason for being and the so called “banker of the poor”, 2006 Nobel peace prize laureate Mohammad Yunus, have in common?  Nothing, you may say. But you would be making a huge mistake. As of September 29 2008 Slim and Yunus have become equal partners in the brand new Grameen-Carso Foundation, a foundation that pools the know how of two companies: the Grameen Bank and the Carso Group.

On the one hand there is the non profit expertise of the Grameen Bank, founded by Yunus in 1976, that gives out small credits –  microcredits – to the poorest people. In the beginning Grameen Bank gave credit in Yunus’ country of origin, Bangladesh, and now operates in almost all the countries in the South and has become a model for many NGO’s and even for exclusively for-profit banks.

On the other there is the Carso Group, founded in 1966 when Slim started up an estate agency, the Carso. This is the beginning of “El Grupo”, one of the most important financial empires in the world that accounts for an indefinite number of activities and industrial, commercial and phone enterprises, from Telmex to América Telecom. El Grupo also holds the greatest number of shares in América Móvil, leading supplier of wireless services in America with activities in Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, United States, Guatemala, Nicaragua and, of course, Mexico, where it operates through the brand Telcel.

Slim and Yunus met last year at a meeting. First the face to face exchange of ideas on the benefits of facilitating credit to the poorest members of society, those who have traditionally been excluded from attaining bank credit, thus enabling them to undertake a productive activity. This was followed by a year long correspondence that culminated in a press conference where Yunus and Slim announced the birth of the Grameen-Carso Foundation.

In Slim’s luxurious offices in Mexico City, in a room filled with artwork including paintings by Renoir, Monet and Van Gogh, Yunus highlighted that the objective of the new alliance “is not only to lend money, but to bring an end to poverty for many people”.  The Mexican magnate, on his part, explained that the foundation “is a not for profit foundation”, and specified the operational details. “There will be an initial capital of five million dollars and we will be able to guarantee another 40 million dollars of preferential credits to the poorest Mexicans”, said Slim. Who added that “the goal is to  is to start the first year with 80 thousand microcredits in support to the same number of productive projects”.

According to Yunus this is a “symbolic event”, because “ it contains in itself the message that Mr Slim, known world-wide as the richest man in the world, is worried about poverty”.  The founder of the Grameen Bank, that in Bangldesh alone guarantees microcredits to more than seven million people, explained that in the next weeks his team will fly to Mexico to train the new foundation’s employees. In the first months the focus will be to concentrate exclusively on small loans to women with small incomes because “the international experience tells us that women are the best multiplier when helping families tackle poverty through the simple but revolutionary tool of microcredit”.

Find out more:

www.grameenfoundation.org

 

Translation from Italian by: Cristina Barbetta