José Manuel de Mello (December 8, 1927 – September 16, 2009), was a Portuguese 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 people, Portuguese conglomerates from the 1930s to 1974 and later a chemical industry, chemical corporation which was by then a part of Grupo José de Mello founded in 1 ...

(CUF), which had been founded by his grandfather Alfredo da Silva.

Career

José Manuel started to work for CUF until the

Carnation Revolution The Carnation Revolution (), code-named Operation Historic Turn (), also known as the 25 April (), was a military coup by military officers that overthrew the Estado Novo government on 25 April 1974 in Portugal. The coup produced major socia ...

military coup in Lisbon, on April 25, 1974. With the pro-

communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

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.

Personal life

He had 12 children.José Manuel Mello faleceu aos 82 anos

Jornal de Notícias (; ; shortened to JN) is a Portuguese daily national newspaper, one of the oldest in Portugal. History and profile ''JN'' was founded in Porto and was first published on 21 June 1888. It was one of two Portuguese newspapers published in Angol ...

(September 17, 2009)

References

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