Philip Morris to pay $700 mln to buy out Carlos Slim in Mexico

REUTERS - Tobacco company Philip Morris International Inc said it would buy out its Mexican joint venture partner controlled by billionaire Carlos Slim, for about $700 million.

The Marlboro maker said it expects the deal to marginally add to earnings per share in the fourth quarter.

Slim's industrial and retail conglomerate Grupo Carso had been selling its stake in local cigarette company Cigatam during the last decade, and at the end of 2007 Slim held just the 20 percent of the company that Philip Morris will now buy.

As a director of Philip Morris, Slim holds 17,076 shares in PMI, worth $1.6 million on Monday, according to a filing with the U.S. securities regulator earlier this month.

The world's richest man, according to Forbes magazine, is also entitled to more shares when he ends his role as a director.

Another Slim company, Inmobiliaria Carso, also holds 300,000 shares in Phillip Morris worth about $28 million, the filing showed.

Shares in Phillip Morris, which had a 73.5 percent share of Mexico's cigarette market in the first quarter, were down 0.9 percent, or 88 cents, at $94.12 in morning trading.

(Reporting by Siddharth Cavale in Bangalore and Elinor Comlay in Mexico City; Editing by Maureen Bavdek)