PMI's CEO Louis Camilleri amed to board of Telmex Internacional..

December 17, 2009 - Carlos Slim’s Telmex Internacional SAB named Philip Morris International Inc. (PMI) Chief Executive Officer Louis Camilleri to its board, strengthening ties between the Mexican billionaire and the tobacco maker.

Shareholders approved the appointment today in a meeting, Mexico City-based Telmex Internacional said in an e-mailed statement. Camilleri, 54, has led the world’s largest publicly traded tobacco company since March 2008, when it was spun off from Altria Group Inc., where he also had been CEO.

Camilleri’s appointment adds to the links between the maker of Marlboro cigarettes and Slim, 69, who’s a member of the board at Philip Morris. Grupo Carso SAB, the holding company controlled by Slim, has a stake in Philip Morris’s Mexican unit.

Philip Morris paid Carso about $1.1 billion in 2007 to acquire a bigger stake in the Mexican cigarette maker. The transaction left Philip Morris with 80 percent of the company and Carso with 20 percent. Carlos Slim has held a stake in the business since the early 1980s.

Telmex Internacional, which controls Latin American phone carriers such as Brazil’s Embratel Participacoes SA, fell 1 centavo to 11.69 pesos today in Mexico City trading, while Carso dropped 32 centavos to 41.60 pesos. New York-based Philip Morris fell 19 cents to $50.07 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.

Telmex Internacional was spun off last year from Telefonos de Mexico SAB, Mexico’s biggest phone company.

Reference: Telmex Internacional Board Adds Philip Morris Chief (Update1), by Crayton Harrison (tharrison5@bloomberg.net), Bloomberg.com, 12/15/2009.