Jorge Paulo Lemann

Jorge Paulo Lemann
Born	August 26, 1939 (1939-08-26) (age 77) Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Residence	Zurich, Switzerland
Citizenship	Brazil, Switzerland[1]
Education	Harvard University[2]
Net worth	US$32.7 billion (September 2016)[2]
Spouse(s)	Married[2]
Children	6[2]

Jorge Paulo Lemann (born August 26, 1939)^[3] is a Brazilian-Swiss investor. He is ranked as the 26th richest person in the world by Forbes, with an estimated net worth of US$32.7 billion as of September 2016^[2] He is the richest person in Brazil.^[4][5] As of 2015, Forbes Brazil listed Lemann as the top entry for the Richest Brazilians list.^[6]

Early life

In 1939, Lemann was born in Rio de Janeiro to Paul Lemann,^[1] a Swiss immigrant, who founded the dairy manufacturer, Leco, and Anna Yvette Truebner, a Brazilian of Swiss origin.^[7][8][9] Lemann attended the American School of Rio de Janeiro.^[10]

His father died in a bus accident in 1953, when Lemann was 14.^[11] In 1961, he received a bachelor's degree in economics from Harvard University. He won the Brazilian national tennis championship five times.^[10][12] He played for both the Swiss and Brazil Davis Cup teams,^[1][13] and played at Wimbledon.

Family

Lemann is twice married and has six children. He shuttles between São Paulo, Rapperswil-Jona on Lake Zurich,^[1] where his family lives, and St. Louis.^[14][15] His first wife was Maria de Santiago Dantas Quental, a psychoanalyst who died in April 2005 aged 60.^[16] His second wife is Susanna Lemann, who has given birth to three children.^[16]

Career

From 1961 to 1962, he worked as a trainee at Credit Suisse in Geneva.^[1] In 1966, the first company in which Lemann had equity interest, a lending company called Invesco, went bankrupt. Lemann had a 2% equity stake.^[11] In 1971, Lemann, Carlos Alberto Sicupira and Marcel Herrmann Telles founded the Brazilian investment banking firm Banco Garantia. Undaunted by a market crash that came only weeks later, Lemann was eventually able to build Garantia into one of the country's most prestigious and innovative investment banks, described in Forbes as "a Brazilian version of Goldman Sachs."^[17][18] All three now help to control AB Inbev as members of its board of directors.

In 1994, he suffered a heart attack, at age 54.^[19] In July 1998, Lemann sold Banco Garantia to Credit Suisse First Boston for $675 million.^[12][17]

From 1990 to 2001, he served as a member of the board of directors of Brahma.^[20] Lemann is a director of Endeavor's Brazil office. Endeavor is an international non-profit development organization that finds and supports high-impact entrepreneurs in emerging markets. Later he and his partners, who founded private equity company GP Investimentos,^[1] bought control of two Brazilian breweries (Brahma beer and Companhia Antarctica Paulista) that became AmBev. In 2003 AmBev had a pretax profit margin of 35 percent on sales of US$2.7 billion. By 2004, it controlled 65 percent of the Brazilian beer market and almost 80 percent of Argentina's, with monopoly positions in Paraguay, Uruguay, and Bolivia.^[21]

AmBev merged with Interbrew of Belgium in August 2004. The stock of the combined firm, InBev, rose 40 percent during 2005. InBev then announced it would buy the American brewer Anheuser-Busch in 2008 for $46 billion in a highly controversial deal, making it the world's largest brewer, Anheuser-Busch Inbev (abbreviated as AB Inbev) securing Lemann's status as one of the new "Kings" of beer.^[22]

Lemann is a board member of Lojas Americanas S.A. and was a former board member of Gillette (where he first worked with Warren Buffett); chairman of the Latin American Advisory Committee of the New York Stock Exchange; founder and board member of Fundação Estudar, which provides scholarships for Brazilian students; and a member of the international advisory boards of Credit Suisse and DaimlerChrysler.

Lemann is among the backers of 3G Capital. In September 2010, 3G launched a $4 billion bid, at a 45% premium over market, for all the stock of Burger King. "3G was advised in the BK offer by Lazard, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays Capital and the law firm Kirkland & Ellis. 3G already has some experience in burgers and fries, having previously invested in Wendy’s."^[23] Together with Berkshire Hathaway, 3G Capital acquired the H. J. Heinz Company for $28 billion in 2013. Its new CEO Bernardo Hees is a former manager of Burger King.^[24] The same group announced the merger of Kraft Foods with Heinz in March 2015.^[25]

References

External links

• Latin America's most important businessmen. Latin Business Chronicle.
• Brazil's Top 50 Businesspeople. Latinvex.