(April 17): Carlos Slim and his family are pocketing profits in US oil companies that have seen their shares surge recently as geopolitical tensions drive up gasoline prices.
Control Empresarial de Capitales, the Slim family’s investment vehicle, has sold about US$497 million ($632.1 million) of stock in PBF Energy Inc this year. It cut its stake by more than a third as the oil refiner’s shares almost doubled amid the US-Iran conflict, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
It also cashed in almost US$40 million of its holding in Houston-based Talos Energy Inc. The company’s share price hit three-year highs in March, the month that made up the biggest volume of the Slim family’s transactions this year for PBF Energy, the data from US regulatory filings show.
“The companies are doing well but our position had grown too much in size and it was a good moment to sell at a good price,” Arturo Elias Ayub, Carlos Slim’s son-in-law and spokesperson, said in a telephone interview. “This doesn’t represent a change in strategy.”
Slim is Latin America’s richest person with a US$132 billion fortune, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, largely through telecommunications giant America Movil SAB de CV. The 86-year-old Mexican magnate has increasingly shifted his fortune into oil and gas companies in recent years, making him one of his home nation’s biggest private investors in the energy sector.
Shares of Talos and PBF have both risen more than 30% this year amid the Middle East conflict disrupting supply chains worldwide. Slim and his family repeatedly boosted their stakes in the companies last year in the latest example of them successfully riding commodity market cycles.
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Control Empresarial de Capitales previously snapped up PBF shares during the pandemic as demand for gasoline slumped, leading to the investment firm pocketing huge profits in 2022 when the global economy reopened and Russia’s Ukraine invasion disrupted the supply of refined fuels.
The firm has sold PBF shares this year for as much as 268% more than the prices it paid in 2025, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, while it was the first time the Slim family cut their Talos stake since emerging as shareholders in 2023.
The most recent sales were April 7, when the family offloaded PBF shares for as much as US$47.50 — about 70% higher than the company’s share price at the end of 2025.
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Representatives for Parsippany, New Jersey-based PBF and Talos, which owns a stake in one of Mexico’s most promising energy projects, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Slim, an energy sector investor for more than a decade, remains a major shareholder of both PBF and Talos even after the sales, controlling stakes worth more than US$1.3 billion overall, Bloomberg’s wealth index shows.
He’s added almost US$21 billion to his fortune this year, partly through his telecom conglomerate continuing to grow despite Latin America’s largest mobile-phone operator increasing competition. His other investments include banking and insurance firm Grupo Financiero Inbursa as well as Spanish real estate firm FCC.
Uploaded by Magessan Varatharaja
