Antônio Ermírio de Moraes (June 4, 1928 – August 24, 2014) was a Brazilian

billionaire A billionaire is a person with a net worth of at least 1,000,000,000, one billion units of a given currency, usually of a major currency such as the United States dollar, euro, or pound sterling. It is a sub-category of the concept of the ultr ...

businessman and the chairman of the

Votorantim Group Votorantim S.A. is a permanently capitalized investment holding company, with a long-term investment approach. Its portfolio companies operate in 16 countries and in different economic sectors, as building materials, finance, aluminum, clean and r ...

, one of the country's largest companies, focused on metals, paper, cement and frozen orange juice. He was the grandfather of

IndyCar Series The IndyCar Series, officially known as the NTT IndyCar Series for sponsorship reasons, is the highest class of American open-wheel car racing in the United States, which has been conducted under the auspices of various sanctioning bodies sinc ...

driver

Mario Moraes Mario Ermirio de Moraes Filho (born December 20, 1988, in São Paulo)http://www.cbssports.com/autoracing/drivers/driverpage/1604847/mario-moraes is a Brazilian professional race car driver. Moraes started his career in minor youth motorsports. ...

. Moraes was also the president of the Beneficência Portuguesa Hospital – located in

São Paulo São Paulo (; ; Portuguese for 'Paul the Apostle, Saint Paul') is the capital of the São Paulo (state), state of São Paulo, as well as the List of cities in Brazil by population, most populous city in Brazil, the List of largest cities in the ...

– which provides 60% of its services to citizens below the

poverty line The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line, or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for ...

. His grandson Artur Freitas was recently announced as his successor in the presidency. As of 2014, Moraes was ranked 520th on the Forbes list of billionaires, with an estimated fortune of $3.1 billion.Antonio Ermirio de Moraes - Forbes
/ref> During the course of his career, Moraes has had direct political involvement with campaigns to promote democracy, the improvement of the national health system and the generation of job opportunities. He ran for governor of

São Paulo State SAO or Sao may refer to: Places * Sao civilisation, in Middle Africa from 6th century BC to 16th century AD * Sao, a town in Boussé Department, Burkina Faso * Serb Autonomous Regions (''Srpska autonomna oblast'', SAO), during the breakup of ...

in 1986, but lost the elections. He frequently published articles in newspapers and magazines of national circulation and is a member of the Academia Paulista de Letras. On his death in 2014, ownership of Votorantim Group passed jointly to his two children, Maria Helena de Moraes and Ermirio Pereira de Moraes.

References

External links

Bio details, University of São Paulo
1928 births 2014 deaths Businesspeople from São Paulo Recipients of the Great Cross of the National Order of Scientific Merit (Brazil) Brazilian billionaires Brazilian businesspeople Brazilian Labour Party (1981) politicians {{Brazil-business-bio-stub