RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – When Ilson Mateus was 21, he unsuccessfully tried to become rich as a prospector in Serra Pelada, in the southeast of Pará state. Now, at the age of 57, he has built one of the largest fortunes in Brazil in one of the poorest regions of the country.
Mateus became the most recent Brazilian to join the ranks of the world’s wealthiest people after the food retail chain he founded went public in the country’s largest IPO (Initial public offering) this year. The stock offering revealed a fortune of around R$8.7 (US$1.55) billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Mateus’ ascent to the billionaires club shows a side of Brazil often ignored in the country’s financial circles. Born in the northeastern state of Maranhão, where approximately one in ten people live in extreme poverty, Mateus began working at the age of 12 to help support his family. At 17, he was already producing ‘cachaça’ before venturing into gold mining.
“I was encouraged to become an entrepreneur at a very young age after my father died when I was four and we moved in with my grandparents,” Mateus said in a 2018 interview with a local television station.
It was during his mining years that he came up with the idea that later would become the Mateus Group. While working in the notorious open-pit mines of Serra Pelada, Mateus heard about Balsas, a city in Maranhão where soy farming was emerging. He opened a grocery store there in 1986, after selling soft drinks along the road.
Mateus Group
Mateus Group is now the fourth-largest food retailer in Brazil, with a market value of around R$20 billion and 137 stores spread throughout the country’s North and Northeast regions, according to the company’s published information. The company headquartered in Maranhão’s capital city São Luís had a turnover of US$8,1 billion in 2019 and employs over 29,000 people.
Mateus is the company’s CEO and majority shareholder even after selling some shares in the IPO. His son, Ilson Mateus Rodrigues Jr., is also a shareholder.
An accident a few days before the IPO almost hindered the offer: the shelves of one of the company’s stores collapsed, killing one person and leaving almost a dozen injured. The Mateus Group is investigating the cause of the accident.
During the bell-ringing ceremony in the stock exchange on Tuesday, Mateus promised to use the IPO’s R$4.6 billion funds to quadruple the number of company employees. He also made another pledge, uncommon in the stock exchange: Mateus quoted a Bible verse about Noah building an altar to the Lord and promised that, together with his employees, he would do the same in his stores.
Source: Bloomberg