Some are finding a silver lining in Europe's economic crisis.
The world’s richest man, billionaire Mexican investor Carlos Slim is reportedly attempting to take advantage of the continent's troubles by increasing his telecommunication company America Movil’s stake in Dutch mobile provider Royal KPN, Bloomberg reports. Carlos Slim Domit, the 72-year-old tycoon's son says the investment builds on his father’s legacy of capitalizing on times of turmoil.
“When hard times come, you can look at opportunities in a very agile way,” Slim Domit, 45, said in an interview this week, according to Bloomberg. “Europe is in a good moment.”
Eurozone leaders are bracing for the possibility that Greece will exit the Euro as it struggles to form a government to approve measures necessary to receive continued aid.
And Slim isn't the only super-rich mogul betting on Europe's woes. Billionaire investor Geroge Soros purchased $2 billion worth of European bonds once held by collapsed brokerage firm MF Global after a $6 billion investment in European debt backfired in spectacular fashion, pushing the firm into bankruptcy.
Indeed, capitalizing on times of turmoil is a popular strategy among some of the world’s most successful investors. Slim amassed a great deal of his fortune during the Mexico currency devaluations in 1976 and 1982, according to the Wall Street Journal, as well as investing in Argentina during the height of its financial crisis.
Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett has made similar investments based on his own advice “Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful.” One of his first contrarian investments came with a stake in floundering American Express in 1964. Since, he's invested $5 billion each in Goldman Sachs and Bank of America when the banks appeared to be in particularly weak positions in 2008 and 2011, respectively.