The Moreira Salles brothers share a majority stake in CBMM, the miner that controls most of the world's output of niobium. The Araxa, Brazil-based company supplies niobium, used to strengthen steel, to over 50 countries. The family also controls Sao Paulo-based Itau Unibanco, the biggest financial institution in Latin America.
The majority of the Moreira Salles family fortune is derived from its stake in Itau Unibanco, the largest financial institution in Latin America. The bank was created when Itau, owned by the Villela and Setubal families, acquired Unibanco, which was founded by the brothers' grandfather, Joao. The family controls the interest through Cia. E. Johnston holding company, according to filings with Brazil's securities regulator. Moreira Salles transferred his 5% stake in the bank to his two brothers, Pedro and Fernando, and Pedro's son in July 2023, according to an October 2023 filing.
CBMM, the family's niobium-mining business, had net revenues of 11.4 billion Brazilian reais in 2023, according to its press release. The valuation is based on CBMM's 2023 financial results and the calculated price-to-sales multiple of Anglo American's former niobium unit. The unit was sold in 2016 for $1.5 billion and the multiples used here were determined with reference to this sale and Anglo American's 2015 financial results. The Moreira Salles family own 70% of CBMM, and each of the four brothers are credited with an equal share of the family's stake. CBMM is the world's largest niobium miner and sells to over 50 countries, according to its website.
The value of his cash investments is based on an analysis of dividend income, stake sales, taxes and market performance. The family's liquid investments are managed through Brasil Warrant Gestao de Investimentos, a single family office with more than 54 billion reais ($9.6 billion) under management as of 2023, according to its March 2024 filing.
The brothers also own stakes in Alpargatas, the maker of Havaianas sandals, through investment firm Cambuhy. The brothers own 14% of Eneva, a power generation company, through Eneva Fundo.
Itau representatives declined to comment on the Moreira Salles net worth.
The Moreira Salles family fortune traces back to 1924, when Joao Moreira Salles opened a banking department at a store in Brazil's Minas Gerais state, where he sold food, drinks and household goods. The operation soon became independent, and financed the expansion of coffee plantations. Joao's son Walther took the helm in 1940, when the family took over two rival banks. He gradually built it into what came to be known as Unibanco.
At the same time, Walther became influential in politics. He served two one-year stints as ambassador to the U.S. in the 1950s, and was finance minister for three years in the early 1960s. While serving as ambassador, he met U.S. Navy Admiral Arthur W. Radford. In 1965, Radford, then a boardmember at the mining company Molycorp, convinced Walther to buy a controlling stake in a niobium deposit in Brazil that the company hoped to develop. It would prove a wise bet. The element is used to strengthen 10 percent of all steel produced today. The company, known as CBMM, controls 85 percent of the world's niobium production.
Walther Moreira Salles was also a member of global high society, hosting guests such as Henry Ford II, Nelson Rockefeller, Aristotle Onassis and Mick Jagger at his mansion in Rio de Janeiro. His first wife, Helene Tourtois, the mother of his son Fernando, was the daughter of the creator of Chanel 5 perfume. His second wife, Elisa Goncalves, gave birth to three more sons: Fernando, Pedro and Walther Jr. She died after jumping out of a window in 1988.
Walther stepped down as chairman of Unibanco in the early 1990s, and founded the Instituto Moreira Salles, which funds cultural programs in Brazil. His former mansion in Rio became its headquarters, and is open to the public. When Walther died in 2001, he bequeathed his stake in Unibanco to his four sons. In 2008, they sold the bank to Itau, owned by the Egydio and Setubal families. The deal created Latin America's largest lender by market value.
Today, Pedro and Fernando lead the family's business interests. Pedro, who suffers from muscular dystrophy and uses a wheelchair, is Itau Unibanco's chairman, while Fernando holds that position at CBMM. The other two brothers lead lives in the arts. Walther Jr. is famous for directing the movies The Motorcycle Diaries and On the Road. Joao is a documentary filmmaker, as well as the founder and publisher of the magazine Piaui, which was inspired by The New Yorker.