Unlikely Riches Found in the Dirt-Poor Badlands of North Brazil

Wind is as good as gold to Mario Araripe, a Brazilian tycoon who built his empire by tapping the same gusts that brought Portuguese sailors to South America five centuries ago.

Harvesting those breezes, he created an estate that includes about 170,000 hectares of land in Brazil’s northeast and Casa dos Ventos, the wind-energy giant that’s developed almost a third of Brazil’s current and planned capacity. His company’s share of that capacity, plus the revenue from a 2.3 billion reais ($767 million) sale of wind assets to Cubico Sustainable Investments Ltd. last year, have helped Araripe grow a personal fortune that the Bloomberg Billionaires Index values at $1.3 billion.