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Brazil’s billionaires on the rise- Forbes
March 8, 2013, 11:39 am

[Getty Images]

Víctor Gradin & family are stockholders of Odebrecht, Brazil’s largest construction company with over 150 thousand employees [Getty Images]

Nine newcomers, including three women on the 2013 Forbes World’s Billionaires List are from Brazil, bringing the total number of Brazilian billionaires to forty six.

Some of the new entrants to the Forbes 2013 list include:

  • Beer billionaire, Walter Faria is estimated at $4.6 billion by Forbes 2013 rich list. Faria is the leader of the Petropolis Group.
  • Daughter of a billionaire father, Ana Maria Marcondes Penido Sant’Anna is estimated at $2.6 billion. She owns shares in CCR Group, Brazil’s largest toll-road company by market value.
  • Dirce Navarro de Camargo is Brazil’s richest woman and partially controls CCR.
  • Víctor Gradin & family are estimated at $1.5 billion, who are stockholders of Odebrecht, Brazil’s largest construction company with over 150 thousand employees.
  • Marcos Antonio Molina dos Santos is estimated at $1 billion. Molina is the founder of Marfrig, the first Brazilian company authorised to export pork products to China. In 2012, as China surpassed the US as Brazil’s main commercial partner, Marfig became the first Brazilian company authorised to export pork products to China. His worldwide company has interests in the US, Argentina, EU, Australia, Paraguay and Uruguay.

Brazil has attracted investment and attention as the poster child for high-growth emerging economies.

The country has been creating some 19 millionaires a day since 2007, according to a 2011 study.

Brazil was leading the BRICS with an average real GDP growth rate of over 4 per cent from 2004 to 2010 and a strong 7.5 per cent GDP growth in 2010 despite the global downturn.

However, 2012 was a bad year for the country with recently released government numbers revealing that GDP last year was down to 0.9 per cent.

Brazil’s policy makers have been trying to address the gaping income divide between its rich and poor.

The country’s last census points out that 700,000 Brazilian families still live in extreme poverty.

President Dilma Rousseff in February raised the monthly stipend of 2.5 million people living below the poverty line to make good on her promise to eradicate extreme poverty in Brazil.

Source: Agencies