Carlos Slim's family has sold Talos Energy stock all year, and September took the stake to 23.4 per cent

Carlos Slim Helú, six of his children and the family holding company Control Empresarial de Capitales, S.A. de C.V. have spent 2026 selling down one of their larger American positions. On 17 September the eight of them filed Amendment No. 5 to their Schedule 13D on Talos Energy Inc., the Houston offshore oil and gas producer, reporting that as of that date they beneficially owned 39,079,036 common shares, or 23.4 per cent of the class. In March the same group had reported 41,233,604 shares and 24.5 per cent.

The reduction between the two amendments is 2,154,568 shares and 1.1 percentage points. Nothing filed in September says why.

The two sales that triggered the filing

The event requiring the amendment was a pair of sales on 15 September 2026, both made on the New York Stock Exchange by Control Empresarial. Schedule 1 to the amendment records a sale of 1,311,000 shares at a weighted average price of $18.5177, sold in multiple transactions at prices ranging from $18.49 to $18.59, and a sale of 70,000 shares at a weighted average price of $18.6131, at prices ranging from $18.60 to $18.655. Calculated from those figures, the two sales raised $24,276,704.70 and $1,302,917.00, or $25,579,621.70 in total.

A Form 4 filed the same day by Control Empresarial codes both as disposals of directly held stock and reports holdings of 39,149,036 after the first and 39,079,036 after the second, which puts the holding immediately before 15 September at 40,460,036 shares. That filing marks Control Empresarial as a ten per cent owner rather than a director or officer.

The percentage in the amendment is calculated on approximately 166,965,468 common shares outstanding as of 28 July 2026, the figure the issuer gave in the Form 10-Q it filed on 5 August. All eight reporting persons hold the stake as shared voting and shared dispositive power, and sole voting and sole dispositive power are reported as zero for each. The individuals do not hold the shares themselves: Control Empresarial owns them directly or indirectly, and the family are beneficiaries of a Mexican trust that owns all the issued and outstanding voting equity of Control Empresarial. The amendment was signed by Marco Antonio Slim Domit, as attorney-in-fact for every individual reporting person and in his own name for the company.

Seven disposals in one year

The September sales were not the year's first. Form 4s filed by Control Empresarial report Talos sales of 960,000 shares at $16.6545 on 26 March, 1,352,000 at $16.6802 on 27 March, 284,000 at $16.3793 on 18 May, 150,000 at $16.3801 on 19 May and 339,568 at $16.7972 on 20 May. Those filings put the holding at 43,545,604 shares before the 26 March sale. Across the seven reported disposals of 2026 the group sold 4,466,568 shares for gross proceeds of $76,932,099.91, both totals calculated from the filed figures.

Amendment No. 5 restates only Item 1 and Item 5. It does not restate Item 3 or Item 4, so the only statement of purpose on the record remains the one filed with the operative Schedule 13D of 3 June 2024, written while the family was still buying.

"The Reporting Persons acquired the Common Shares described in Item 3 above for investment purposes and did not acquire such Common Shares with the purpose, or with the effect, of changing or influencing control of the Issuer, or in connection with or as a participant in any transaction having that purpose or effect."

That language is Item 4 of the 3 June 2024 Schedule 13D, and it has not been amended since. The same item reserves the right to move in either direction, saying the reporting persons may in future increase or decrease their position through, among other things, the purchase or sale of securities of the issuer.

How the position was built

The family bought into Talos in size in January 2024. In a 30,000,000-share underwritten public offering by the company, Control Empresarial took 19,658,119 common shares for an aggregate $229,999,992.30, using its own working capital. On 30 May 2024 it bought a further 1,400,000 shares for an aggregate $16,030,000.00, taking it from 36,272,904 to 37,672,904 shares and past 20 per cent of the class. Purchases in the 60 days before the June 2024 filing were made on the New York Stock Exchange at prices around $11.59 to $11.60. Working capital is the source of funds reported throughout, for every reporting person, up to and including the September 2026 amendment.

The issuer's own proxy statement, filed on 22 April 2026, records the family holding shared voting and dispositive power over 41,233,604 shares, citing the 30 March amendment and matching its share count exactly. The same proxy names the next three largest holders: BlackRock, Inc. with sole dispositive power over 18,518,523 shares, Sourcerock Group LLC with 11,193,177 and Dimensional Fund Advisors LP with 8,967,001. A cooperation agreement dated 16 December 2024, amended on 8 December 2025 to run to 16 December 2026, bars Control Empresarial and its affiliates from acquiring voting securities that would take the investor group above 25 per cent of the outstanding voting shares. The proxy states the agreement contains no other voting or similar limitation.

"Given its ownership interest, the Slim Family Office has significant influence over matters submitted to stockholders for approval, including changes in capital structure, transactions requiring stockholder approval under Delaware law, and corporate governance. The Slim Family Office may have different interests than other holders of our common stock and may make decisions adverse to your interests."

What the filings do not say

Seven days after the sales, on 22 September 2026, Talos closed its purchase, alongside an affiliate of Ridgewood Energy Corporation, of Shell Offshore Inc. deepwater assets in the Mississippi Canyon area of the Gulf of America, at an unadjusted aggregate cash purchase price of $1,700 million, with closing cash consideration net to the Talos subsidiary of $420 million. That is the sequence. No filing connects the sales to the acquisition, and nothing on the record asserts a link between them.

Two figures in the record do not reconcile. The family's first Talos Schedule 13D, filed on 22 January 2024, states that the purchase of 19,658,119 shares took Control Empresarial from 13,392,000 common shares to 34,747,781 common shares, which the arithmetic does not support: 13,392,000 plus 19,658,119 is 33,050,119, a difference of 1,697,662 shares that the filing does not explain. Separately, the April 2026 proxy puts the family at approximately 24.7 per cent as of 31 March 2026 while the family's own 30 March amendment says 24.5 per cent. The share counts the two documents cite are identical, so the difference sits in the denominator each chose, and neither document reconciles it.

Beyond that, the record is thin on intent. No filing discloses a plan, a trading arrangement or a target holding, so whether the selling continues is not known. The powers of attorney used for the September signatures are incorporated by reference from an unrelated March 2026 filing, and nothing shows Carlos Slim Helú personally directed the sales. The proxy shows no board designation right at Talos, and does not address whether the family has informal representation. Neither Carlos Slim Helú, nor any family member, nor Control Empresarial, nor Talos has commented on the September sales in any primary document.