Joe Berardo

Life

Berardo was born at Santa Luzia, Funchal, Madeira, Portugal, in 1944, as the seventh child of a modest family. Berardo left school when he was 13 years old and got a low-ranked job in the winery sector of Madeira wine. At the age of 18, he emigrated to South Africa where he worked in horticulture distribution and eventually set up large commercial ventures, becoming at the end of the 20th century one of the most renowned and wealthiest Portuguese entrepreneurs. In South Africa, he created Egoli Consolidated Mines Ltd, a gold extraction company. Initially, the gold extraction was performed using low-value waste lands that were apparently being ignored. Later, the mining company started to deal with diamond mining as well. Berardo returned to Portugal in 1986.

Stock market

As a very wealthy and active stock trader, Berardo is a central personality on the Portuguese stock exchange, Euronext Lisbon, where he trades large amounts of stock throughout the year, often having immediate capital gain as his only perceived goal. His businesses include hotels, tobacco, animal food, telecommunications, banking, and wines. Berardo's estimated total wealth, including stock in large Portuguese banking and telecommunications companies, is over €1.9 billion.

Long-term stockholding

Berardo also has long-term investments in large companies, like Millennium BCP bank and Portugal Telecom (PT) telecommunications operator, which are both listed on the Euronext Lisbon. In 2006, he took a prominent part in the struggle against Sonae.com's very publicized takeover bid over Portugal Telecom. Sonae.com's takeover bid opposing Belmiro de Azevedo (founder and historical chairman of Sonae holding company) and his son Paulo Azevedo (ex-head officer of Sonae.com telecommunications operator and actual chairman of Sonae) to the investor Berardo and PT's administrators Zeinal Bava and Henrique Granadeiro, failed.

S.L. Benfica - Futebol, S.A.D. share bid

In June 2007, Berardo made a bid for 60% of Sport Lisboa e Benfica - Futebol, S.A.D. shares at €3.50 a share, a 30% premium to the recent share price. But the price was well below the €5 a share set at Benfica's IPO in May 2007, when after an initial flurry of optimism the shares fell steadily to below €3 apiece, hammered hard by the team's fourth-place finish in the Portuguese Liga and the failure to make any great gains in European competition. Berardo's bid was not hostile, as reports said the Benfica management had been informed in advance and was generally in favor of the offer. Overall, the bid was worth some €31.5 million and was conditional on Berardo netting 50% of the company plus one share, to ensure control. The bid valued Sport Lisboa e Benfica - Futebol, S.A.D. at €52.5 million. However, Berardo didn't exclude a major stake in the Futebol, S.A.D., which could have been achieved within the 33% free float of publicly traded stock that was issued in the stock market in May 2007. Berardo, who is a registered member of Sport Lisboa e Benfica and a declared supporter of the club, failed to become the largest individual stockholder in the Benfica - Futebol, S.A.D. organization, since only about 1% of the intended stock was sold to him as of the 20 August 2007 deadline.

Club Sport Marítimo

After his failed attempt to bid on Benfica, Berardo refocused his attention on his hometown club Club Sport Marítimo, of which has also declared his support for and is a registered member also. On 17 November 2007, during the club's 97th anniversary celebration, he was honoured with a silver medal to commemorate his 25 years as a Marítimo member. He used the occasion to announce his interest in the clubs' new stadium plans, the Estádio do Marítimo, and offer his aid as a "supporter with passion" for the club.

Art collection

Berardo has a special interest for modern art, being one of the most successful contemporary art collectors in Portugal. An inveterate collector, he started as a schoolboy with stamps, postcards and matchboxes and graduated to modern and contemporary art in the 1980s. His various collections, which include art deco and Chinese porcelain, encompass more than 40,000 works, of which some 1,200 are by well-known modern and contemporary artists with a reported value of $750 million. Much of his art collection has in the past been used as collateral to borrow from banks.

Berardo went public with his collection in 1997, displaying works at an old casino in Sintra, and then at the white stone fortress-like Centro Cultural de Belém, in Lisbon. By agreement with the Portuguese Government, a foundation (Fundação de Arte Moderna e Contemporânea—Colecção Berardo) was created to support the housing of his art collection of roughly 1,800 works at the Centro Cultural de Belém. Much as the Spanish state did with the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, the government agreed to house part of his collection and took a 10-year option to buy 862 paintings and sculptures for 316 million euros, based on a Christie's valuation in 2006. The Museu Colecção Berardo was inaugurated on June 25, 2007. Berardo's 35-hectare sculpture park in Quinta dos Loridos, north of Lisbon, opened in phases since 2006. When he read about the Taliban’s destruction of Afghanistan’s enormous stone Buddhas in Bamiyan in 2001, he bought a massive range of Buddhist statues, and created the Buddha Eden Gardens (about 45 minutes outside of Lisbon). In 2011, Berardo set up the Aliança Underground Museum, a free exhibition of tiles, ethnographic art, ceramics, minerals and fossils in an unused tunnel on a winemaker’s property in Sangalhos. In 2012, an exhibition of works from Berardo's Modern and contemporary collection, including pieces by Gerhard Richter, Francis Bacon and Andy Warhol, was on show at the Gary Nader Art Centre in Miami, Florida.

Civil awards and decorations