António de Sommer Champalimaud ( Lapa,

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...

, 19 March 1918 – Lapa, Lisbon, 8 May 2004) was a

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

banker A bank is a financial institution that accepts Deposit account, deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital m ...

and

industrialist A business magnate, also known as a tycoon, is a person who has achieved immense wealth through the ownership of multiple lines of enterprise. The term characteristically refers to a powerful entrepreneur or investor who controls, through perso ...

in 2004. He was the wealthiest man in

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

, he earned his fortune with

insurance Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to hedge ...

banking A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Because ...

, iron ore mining and

cement A cement is a binder, a chemical substance used for construction that sets, hardens, and adheres to other materials to bind them together. Cement is seldom used on its own, but rather to bind sand and gravel ( aggregate) together. Cement mix ...

industries, which were nationalized after the

Carnation Revolution The Carnation Revolution ( pt, Revolução dos Cravos), also known as the 25 April ( pt, 25 de Abril, links=no), was a military coup by left-leaning military officers that overthrew the authoritarian Estado Novo regime on 25 April 1974 in Lisbo ...

of 1974. After living in exile in

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

for seven years, he returned to Portugal and rebuilt his companies.

Biography

Born in 1918, the eldest child and son of Carlos Montez Champalimaud (

Peso da Régua :''Regua leads here. For American major general, see Eldon Regua'' Peso da Régua (), commonly known as Régua, is a municipality in northern Portugal, in the district of Vila Real. The population in 2011 was 17,131 (of which approximately 10,000 ...

, Godim, 13 November 1877 –

Cascais Cascais () is a town and municipality in the Lisbon District of Portugal, located on the Portuguese Riviera. The municipality has a total of 214,158 inhabitants in an area of 97.40 km2. Cascais is an important tourism in Portugal, tourist de ...

, 4 May 1937), a military doctor, Lord of the ancestral home of Quinta do Cotto in the Douro region (great-great-grandson in female line of French Paul Joseph Champalimaud, seigneur de Nussane, who came to Portugal and here married Clara Maria de Sousa Lira e Castro), and wife (m. Lisbon, 2 June 1917) Ana de Araújo de Sommer (Lisbon, 23 April 1885 – ?) (great-granddaughter in male line of

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

Franz Joseph Freiherr von

Sommer Sommer is a surname, from the German, Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian languages word for the season "summer". Notable people with this name include: A–L * Alfred Sommer (born 1943), American academic * Alice Herz-Sommer (1903–2014), Czech-born J ...

and wife Klara Werlein von

Ascheberg Ascheberg () is a municipality in the district of Coesfeld in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The neighbouring cities, towns and municipalities of Ascheberg are (clockwise, starting in the North) the city Münster, the town Drenste ...

, who came to Portugal during the

Liberal Wars The Liberal Wars (), also known as the Portuguese Civil War (), the War of the Two Brothers () or Miguelite War (), was a war between liberal constitutionalists and conservative absolutists in Portugal over royal succession that lasted from 18 ...

). He attended the La Guardia Jesuit High School before enrolling at the Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa to study

Chemistry Chemistry is the science, scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the Chemical element, elements that make up matter to the chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions ...

. António never finished his college education, for at 19, after his father's death, he took over the family's construction company. Later, at the age of 28 he took over his uncle's ( Henrique de Araújo de Sommer, one of Portugal most important industrialists, who had died without issue, as did two of his brothers, two of his sisters and his niece) cement business. In Cascais,

Estoril Estoril () is a town in the Municipality of Cascais, Portugal, on the Portuguese Riviera. It is a tourist destination, with luxury hotels, beaches, and the Casino Estoril. It has been home to numerous royal families and celebrities, and has host ...

, at the Igreja de Santo António, on 16 December 1941 he married

Dona Dona may refer to: * Feminine form for don (honorific) (Spanish: doña, Portuguese: dona; Italian: donna), a Spanish, Portuguese, southern Italian, and Filipino title, given as a mark of respect * Feminine form for dom (title), titled nobility in ...

Maria Cristina da Silva José de Mello ( Lapa, Lisbon, 6 March 1920 – Lisbon, Prazeres, 25 August 2006), daughter of the major industrialist Dom Manuel Augusto José de Mello (of the Counts do

Cartaxo Cartaxo () is a municipality in the district of Santarém in continental Portugal. The population in 2011 was 24,462, in an area of 158.17 km². The urbanized centre of Cartaxo had a population of 9,507 in 2001. History In written and ora ...

Count Count (feminine: countess) is a historical title of nobility in certain European countries, varying in relative status, generally of middling rank in the hierarchy of nobility. Pine, L. G. ''Titles: How the King Became His Majesty''. New York: ...

s and

Marquess A marquess (; french: marquis ), es, marqués, pt, marquês. is a nobleman of high hereditary rank in various European peerages and in those of some of their former colonies. The German language equivalent is Markgraf (margrave). A woman wi ...

es of Sabugosa, Counts of São Lourenço and Alferes-Majors of the Realm), and Amélia de Resende Dias de Oliveira da Silva. They had seven children together. Maria Cristina was an heir to the Grupo CUF, a company that was a conglomerate with interests in

chemical A chemical substance is a form of matter having constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Some references add that chemical substance cannot be separated into its constituent elements by physical separation methods, i.e., wi ...

textiles Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not the ...

, insurances,

shipbuilding Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to befor ...

and repairing,

shipping Freight transport, also referred as ''Freight Forwarding'', is the physical process of transporting Commodity, commodities and merchandise goods and cargo. The term shipping originally referred to transport by sea but in American English, it h ...

and

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

industries. They were divorced by 1957, after which he started competing with his ex-brother-in-law in the banking and insurance markets. His ex-wife married secondly in Lisbon, São Mamede, on 29 March 1980 Amaro de Azevedo Gomes (Cascais,

São Domingos de Rana São Domingos de Rana () is a Freguesia, civil parish ( pt, Freguesia (Portugal), freguesia) of the Portugal, Portuguese concelho, municipality of Cascais, part of the Greater Lisbon subregion. The population in 2011 was 57,502, in an area of 20.36 ...

, 22 June 1917 – Lisbon, São Mamede, 1 January 2008), without issue. He bequeathed 500 million euros to establish the

Champalimaud Foundation The Champalimaud Foundation ( pt, Fundação Champalimaud) is a private biomedical research foundation. It was created according to the will of the late entrepreneur António de Sommer Champalimaud, in 2004. The complete name of the foundation ...

in order to support

biomedicine Biomedicine (also referred to as Western medicine, mainstream medicine or conventional medicine)

. The foundation also administers a yearly 1 million euro prize for outstanding research related to

vision Vision, Visions, or The Vision may refer to: Perception Optical perception * Visual perception, the sense of sight * Visual system, the physical mechanism of eyesight * Computer vision, a field dealing with how computers can be made to gain un ...

, an appropriate prize, as late in life António lost his

eyesight Visual perception is the ability to interpret the surrounding environment through photopic vision (daytime vision), color vision, scotopic vision (night vision), and mesopic vision (twilight vision), using light in the visible spectrum reflecte ...

Business

Champalimaud expanded the cement business he took over from his uncle Henrique de Sommer in 1946 and expanded it in Portugal to the point of a near monopoly. He also expanded his cement industry into Africa, to the Portuguese overseas territories of

Angola , national_anthem = " Angola Avante"() , image_map = , map_caption = , capital = Luanda , religion = , religion_year = 2020 , religion_ref = , coordina ...

and

Mozambique Mozambique (), officially the Republic of Mozambique ( pt, Moçambique or , ; ny, Mozambiki; sw, Msumbiji; ts, Muzambhiki), is a country located in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi ...

. In the early 1960s, he bought the ''Banco Pinto & Sotto Mayor'' (BPSM) and the insurance companies ''Confiança'', ''Mundial'' and ''Continental Resseguros''. In 1969 he fled to Mexico to avoid an arrest warrant related to an inheritance case over shares of the ''Empresa de Cimentos de Leiria'', his uncle's old company. The warrant was revoked in 1973, after which Champalimaud returned to Portugal. In 1975, a year after the

, his companies were nationalized by the new government. Champalimaud first fled to France and ultimately to Brazil. Without his fortune, he restarted building his wealth, first establishing a cement company in Brazil, and later by also operating commercial farms. In 1992, Champalimaud returned to Portugal and started to buy back his old companies. In a series of transactions, Champalimaud sold the Champalimaud Group to the

Banco Santander Central Hispano Banco Santander, S.A., doing business as Santander Group (, , Spanish: ), is a Spanish multinational financial services company based in Madrid and Santander in Spain. Additionally, Santander maintains a presence in all global financial centre ...

, BSCH, Spain's largest bank .

References

*
Champalimaud Foundation
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Champalimaud, Antonio Champalimaud, Antonio de Sommer Champalimaud, Antonio de Sommer Portuguese bankers Portuguese people of French descent Portuguese people of German descent Portuguese businesspeople Champalimaud, Antonio de Sommer Portuguese nobility Portuguese philanthropists 20th-century Portuguese businesspeople 21st-century Portuguese businesspeople 20th-century philanthropists Members of the Board of Directors of the Banco Santander

Biography

Business

See also

References