Brazil gained 20 new billionaires in pandemic year

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The group of super-rich Brazilians grew in 2020. There are 20 new billionaires in the pandemic year, according to Forbes magazine. Forbes says Brazil counts in April this year a total of 65 individuals whose fortunes exceed one billion dollars.

These 65 billionaires have a combined wealth of about US$212 billion (R$1.2 trillion). This amount had almost doubled in 2020: the country’s super-rich have added US$85 billion.

Among the new members of the list are David Vélez, CEO and founder of Nubank, Anne Marie Werninghaus, a shareholder of motor manufacturer WEG, and heirs to the Magazine Luiza fortune. The survey loses Joseph Safra and Aloysio de Andrade Faria, founder of the Alfa group, who died in 2020.

Another newcomer is Guilherme Benchimol, founder of XP, who announced, about 15 days ago, his resignation from the CEO position to take over the board of the brokerage house.

André Street and Eduardo de Pontes, cofounders of payment processor Stone, with US$2.5 billion and US$ 2.4 billion, respectively, also debut in the Forbes ranking.

The magazine points out that the economist and businessman Jorge Paulo Lemann, co-founder of 3G Capital, which controls the Kraft Heinz group and the beer giant AB Inbev, remains the richest Brazilian, with assets valued at US$16.9 billion (R$94.7 billion).

Since Forbes takes the current residence as a basis to which country the billionaires are to be assigned, only 11 new Brazilian billionaires are to be found in the survey labeled as ‘Brazilians’. But some of the Brazilian super-rich live abroad.

Lemann and his AB Inbev partner Carlos Alberto Sicupirado for example do not appear in Brazil but Switzerland. Alexandre Behring, co-founder of 3G Capital appear in the United States; Antonio Luiz Seabra, cofounder of Natura, in the UK; and Eduardo Saverin, co-founder of Facebook, in Singapore. Liu Ming Chung, a paper industry magnate who always appeared Brazilian, is now considered a Hong Kong billionaire. To make the comparison as close as possible, Forbes considers the five billionaires mentioned above as Brazilians.

Conversely, non-Brazilians living in Brazil are also listed as ‘Brazilian billionaires’.

Read: Swiss wealth manager Lombard Odier sets up private banking structure in Brazil

Brazil ranked 7th in the list of countries that have added the most billionaires to their population by 2020. China and the United States, countries where almost half of all the world’s super-rich come from, lead the list with a total of 724 and 626 of them, respectively.

Brazil is part of a global trend: only Kuwait, Angola, and Caribbean nations St. Kitts and Nevis lost billionaires by 2020. All other countries recorded an increase in the super-rich.

On the other side of the coin, Brazil is also among the ten countries with the highest income inequality, taking into account data from the synthesis of social indicators released by IBGE in 2020.

The country stands out with 0.539 in the Gini index (when closer to 1, the more unequal is a nation). According to information from the Federal Audit Court, more than 30% of the Brazilian population had to be assisted by the first emergency aid stage in the pandemic’s first months.

2020 was also the year in which the country was again haunted by a return to the Hunger Map, from which it left in 2014. At the end of 2020, 19 million Brazilians went hungry.

See below for the full list:

Jorge Paulo Lemann – US$ 16,9 bi
Eduardo Saverin – US$ 14,6 bi
Marcel Herrmann Telles – US$ 11,5 bi
Jorge Moll Filho e família – US$ 11,3 bi
Carlos Alberto Sicupira e família – US$ 8,7 bi
Vicky Safra – US$ 7,4 bi
Família Safra (David, Jacob, Alberto e Esther Safra) – US$ 7,1 bi
Alexandre Behring – US$ 7 bi
Dulce Pugliese de Godoy Bueno – US$ 6 bi
Alceu Elias Feldmann – US$ 5,4 bi
Luiza Helena Trajano – US$ 5,3 bi
David Velez – US$ 5,2 bi
Luis Frias – US$ 4,6 bi
Andre Esteves – US$ 4,5 bi
Candido Pinheiro Koren de Lima – US$ 3,7 bi
Franco Bittar Garcia – US$ 3,5 bi
Pedro de Godoy Bueno – US$ 3 bi
Joesley Batista – US$2,9 bi
Wesley Batista – US$ 2,9 bi
Walter Faria – US$ 2,9 bi
Luciano Hang – US$ 2,7 bi
Guilherme Benchimol – US$ 2,6 bi
Abilio dos Santos Diniz – US$ 2,6 bi
Jose Luis Cutrale – US$ 2,5 bi
Pedro Moreira Salles – US$ 2,5 bi
Carlos Sanchez – US$ 2,5 bi
André Street – US$ 2,5 bi
Eduardo de Pontes – US$ 2,4 bi
Antonio Luiz Seabra – US$ 2,4 bi
Liu Ming Chung – US$ 2,3 bi
Fernando Roberto Moreira Salles – US$ 2,3 bi
João Moreira Salles – US$ 2,3 bi
Walther Moreira Salles Junior – US$ 2,3 bi
Jose Joao Abdalla Filho – US$ 2,2 bi
Miguel Krigsner – US$ 2,2 bi
Rubens Menin Teixeira de Souza – US$ 2,2 bi
Julio Bozano – US$ 2,1 bi
Fabricio Garcia – US$ 2,1 bi
Flavia Bittar Garcia Faleiros – US$ 2,1 bi
João Alves de Queiroz Filho – US$ 1,9 bi
Ermirio Pereira de Moraes – US$ 1,9 bi
Maria Helena Moraes Scripilliti – US$ 1,9 bi
João Roberto Marinho – US$ 1,8 bi
José Roberto Marinho – US$ 1,8 bi
Roberto Irineu Marinho – US$ 1,8 bi
Jorge Pinheiro Koren de Lima – US$ 1,8 bi
Candido Pinheiro Koren de Lima Junior – US$ 1,8 bi
David Feffer – US$ 1,7 bi
Alfredo Egydio Arruda Villela Filho – US$ 1,6 bi
Daniel Feffer – US$ 1,6 bi
Jorge Feffer – US$ 1,6 bi
Ruben Feffer – US$ 1,6 bi
Alexandre Grendene Bartelle – US$ 1,6 bi
Rubens Ometto Silveira Mello – US$ 1,6 bi
Lirio Parisotto – US$ 1,5 bi
Fernando Trajano – US$ 1,5 bi
Samuel Barata – US$ 1,4 bi
Maurizio Billi – US$ 1,4 bi
Ana Lucia de Mattos Barretto Villela – US$ 1,4 bi
Jayme Garfinkel – US$ 1,4 bi
Guilherme Peirao Leal – US$ 1,4 bi
Ilson Mateus – US$ 1,4 bi
Lily Safra – US$ 1,3 bi
Anne Werninghaus – US$ 1,1 bi
Maria Pinheiro – US$ 1 bi

Source: Forbes