José Manuel de Mello (8 December 1927 – 16 September 2009) 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 ...

businessman who founded the conglomerate Grupo José de Mello. He was the heir of an older industrial conglomerate,

Companhia União Fabril The Companhia União Fabril (CUF) was one of the largest and oldest Portuguese conglomerates from the 1930s to 1974 and later a chemical corporation which was by then a part of Grupo José de Mello founded in 1988. After many acquisitions, mergers ...

(CUF), which had been founded by his grandfather

Alfredo da Silva Alfredo Da Silva (February 20, 1935 – January 26, 2020) was a painter, graphic artist, and photographer, known for his abstract expressionism. He came to international prominence in 1959 and remained so until his death in 2020. Biography ...

. José Manuel started to work for CUF until the Carnation Revolution military coup in Lisbon, on 25 April 1974. With the pro- communist inspiration of the radical events that followed the coup, José Manuel de Mello had to leave the country in 1975. Some years later, as democracy and modern capitalism prevailed in post-revolutionary Portugal, Mello, like many other political refugees of the entrepreneurial class, returned to his country. He then resumed his business activities and ultimately built a business conglomerate - the Grupo José de Mello with strong interests on motorway infrastructure, healthcare and chemicals. He had 12 children.José Manuel Mello faleceu aos 82 anos
Jornal de Notícias (September 17, 2009)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mello, Jose Manuel de 1927 births 2009 deaths 20th-century Portuguese businesspeople