Julio Lobo y Olavarria (30 October 1898– 30 January 1983) was a powerful

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

n sugar trader and

financier An investor is a person who allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest). Through this allocated capital most of the time the investor purchases some species of property. Type ...

. From the late 1930s to 1960, when he left Cuba to go into exile, Lobo was considered the single most powerful sugar broker in the world. At the time of the start of the

Cuban Revolution The Cuban Revolution ( es, Revolución Cubana) was carried out after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état which placed Fulgencio Batista as head of state and the failed mass strike in opposition that followed. After failing to contest Batista in co ...

in 1959, Lobo's fortune was estimated at close to

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

200 million ( US$1,800 million in 2020 ). His assets then included 14 sugar mills, over 30,000 acres of land, a bank, an

insurance company 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 ...

, and offices in

Havana Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.

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, and

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. Following the Cuban revolution of 1959, Lobo was summoned to Havana by Che Guevara. He was informed that all of his sugar mills, other companies, and his houses were being appropriated by the newly formed Communist regime. However, knowing that Lobo was only person in Cuba who knew how to run the sugar refineries, Guevara offered Lobo a job as the head of the sugar industry in Cuba. If he accepted, Lobo would be granted one sugar mill and one personal residence. Lobo told Guevara he needed to think it over. The next day, Lobo boarded his private plane and left Cuba, never to return. Lobo was born in Caracas (Venezuela) to a father of

Sephardi Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), pt, Judeus sefa ...

Jewish descent and a Catholic mother, and grew up in

Havana Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.

. As a young man he studied in the

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. He subsequently married into an old Cuban aristocratic family, the Montalvo family. Eventually he inherited his father's trading business and turned it into the world's largest sugar trading firm. A renowned art connoisseur, Lobo also acquired the largest collection of Napoleonic

memorabilia A souvenir (), memento, keepsake, or token of remembrance is an object a person acquires for the memories the owner associates with it. A souvenir can be any object that can be collected or purchased and transported home by the traveler as a m ...

outside of

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. The collection is housed today in Havana in the former home of

Orestes Ferrara Orestes Ferrara y Marino (18 July 1876, Naples, Italy - 16 February 1972, Rome),

, at the Napoleon Museum (Havana). Many of the books and manuscripts from Lobo's collection were moved to the Biblioteca Nacional de Cuba José Martí. Lobo died in Madrid on January 30, 1983, and is buried at the

Almudena Cathedral Almudena Cathedral (''Santa María la Real de La Almudena'') is a Catholic church in Madrid, Spain. It is the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Madrid. The cathedral was consecrated by Pope John Paul II in 1993. History When the capita ...

next to

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References

*John Paul Rathbone, The Sugar King of Havana: the Rise and Fall of Julio Lobo, Cuba's Last Tycoon (2010) *Sulema Rodríguez Roche and Zoia Rivera, “La Biblioteca de Julio Lobo: Una Aproximación a Su Colección Napoleónica,” ''Acimed: Revista Cubana de Los Profesionales de La Información y La Comunicación En Salud'' 17, no. 1 (January 2008): 189–97. 1898 births 1983 deaths 20th-century Cuban businesspeople Cuban people of Jewish descent Businesspeople in the sugar industry Cuban landowners Venezuelan emigrants to Cuba Cuban emigrants to the United States {{cuba-business-bio-stub