Antonio Ermirio de Moraes Net Worth & Biography

After battling Alzheimer’s disease for more than a decade, Antonio Ermirio de Moraes, the entrepreneur who reportedly owned 25 percent of Grupo Votorantim, and helped forge the largest industrial conglomerate in Brazil, died in São Paulo on Sunday, August 24, 2014, of heart failure at age 86 (according to info retrieved from a source within his company at the time of his passing). Mr. Ermirio de Moraes was for many years the chairman and chief executive officer of Grupo Votorantim, which owns Brazil’s largest aluminum and cement producer, a sizable operation in the mining and steel sector, and a financial group that controls the 10th-largest bank in the company. He left the board of Grupo Votorantim and was rarely seen publicly since being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2001. Now mainly led by a team of professional executives and the family’s fourth generation, Grupo Votorantim thrived during the last century, in a country marked by economic booms and busts, massive political volatility, and, especially, the burden of hyperinflation. With his death, Grupo Votorantim lost an outstanding leader in a man like Ermirio de Moraes, a man with a vision and the discipline needed to lead a business to success in a rocky environment. An example and inspiration to the company’s values such as respect, work ethics, entrepreneurship, Mr. Antonio whose ability to foresee ambitious opportunities and execute large projects was a selling point in his career, was largely respected in Brazil and throughout South America for his humble lifestyle and his deep concerns in areas as diverse as theater, politics, and philanthropy. He sponsored the establishment of a big hospital in São Paulo, where he visited the emergency room unannounced to make sure attendance was prompt. More details follow below.

Early Life: Childhood, Education

Antônio Ermírio de Moraes was born on June 4, 1928, in São Paulo, Brazil. He was the oldest of four children. His father was José Ermirio de Moraes, a businessman who started the Grupo Votorantim in 1918 after acquiring a textile plant in the southeastern town of Sorocaba.

He studied mining at the Colorado School of Mines in the 1940s before joining his father’s company where he spearheaded an expansion of the company into other profitable business sectors.

He was the grandfather of IndyCar Series racer Mario Moraes.

Professional Life: Business Career

After completing his studies at the Colorado School of Mines, Antonio Ermirio de Moraes joined his father’s Grupo Votorantim and helped expand it to include operations in the aluminum and chemicals sectors. In the 1980s, under his stewardship, the company further expanded into paper and pulp and also banking as well. Grupo Votorantim does business in over 20 countries presently.

The Brazilian billionaire businessman, Antonio Ermirio de Moraes, served as the chairperson of the Votorantim Group, a successful company that focuses on frozen orange juice, metals, paper, and cement, among other things.

Moraes was the president of São Paulo’s Beneficência Portuguesa Hospital which provides 60 percent of its services to Brazilians below the poverty line.

During the course of his career which lasted over five decades, Mr. Moraes had direct political involvement with movements to promote democracy, the generation of job opportunities, and the improvement of the health system in Brazil. He contested for the governorship seat in the state of São Paulo in 1986 but lost the elections. São Paulo is Brazil’s wealthiest and most populous state, and Mr. Antonio lived here all through his life.

He was a member of the Academia Paulista de Letras, and frequently published articles in magazines and newspapers of national circulation. He also wrote three plays depicting the nation’s political, ethical, and economic crises.

Personal Life

He was married to Maria Regina until his death in 2014. He had nine children, including Ermirio Pereira de Moraes and Maria Helena de Moraes, who, on his passing, inherited joint ownership of the Votorantim Group.

Antonio Ermirio de Moraes Net Worth

The late São Paulo-based businessman, Antonio Ermirio de Moraes, had a net worth of approximately $4 billion dollars at the time of his demise in 2014. Survived by his wife and nine children who currently control his interest in the Brazilian conglomerate Grupo Votorantim, Mr., Ermirio de Moraes was one of the richest men in Brazil at the peak of his professional career. He was the former chairman and chief executive officer of Votorantim Group, and held significant shares in everything from food and cement, to oil, paper, and private finance. He was also involved in politics and was a known writer who published multiple articles and editorials.