The world’s richest man, Mexican telecommunications billionaire Carlos Slim, has acquired an 8.4 percent stake in Argentina’s newly state-controlled oil and gas producer, YPF S.A., but it’s unclear what he intends to do with it.

While it could be seen as part of a recent buying spree of assets in Europe and Latin America, Slim’s office is coy about whether he intends to keep the YPF shares. Slim has a reputation for purchasing under-valued companies and distressed assets in times of crisis to later sell them off. But he also has a real interest in the oil industry, with companies like Swecomex providing offshore oil platforms and equipment.

A filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Slim and members of his family acquired 32.9 million shares of YPF Class D shares on Tuesday and Wednesday.

But Slim’s spokeswoman, Concepcion Rivera, said Friday that there had been no purchase. Rather, she said, Slim’s Inbursa bank had converted debt obligations to shares, as stipulated in a contract on a syndicated loan made by a consortium of banks to the Argentine company years ago.

“We didn’t buy any shares in the company,’’ Rivera said. “What we had is a loan that Inbursa made to the company more than four years ago.’’

When the loan expired without repayment, “the shares were the collateral for the loan.’’ She said that other banks in the syndicate also got shares.

Whether Slim will keep the stock “is something we’ll see in the future,’’ Rivera said.

But in a statement, Slim’s office said that YPF “is a very solid company with important growth potential,’’ precisely the kind of companies such as the retail, real estate, tire and cigarette firms Slim bought during crisis years in Mexico in the 1980s and 1990s, and later made a profit on.

In 2010, when Slim was named world’s richest man by Forbe’s magazine in 2010, his spokesman, Arturo Elias Ayub, noted “In periods of crisis, he has always invested.’’