Businessman Olavo Monteiro de Carvalho, 80, died today (20) in Rio de Janeiro, a victim of a cerebrovascular accident (CVA). He was hospitalized at CopaStar Hospital, in the southern part of the Rio de Janeiro capital.
Olavo Monteiro de Carvalho was born in Rio de Janeiro, on February 24, 1942, son of Alberto Monteiro de Carvalho and Maria Salamanca Monteiro de Carvalho, of the Spanish nobility. He studied at the traditional Colégio Santo Inácio, and then went to Europe. In Germany, he worked as an assistant at the Volkswagen factory and took a mechanical engineering course at the Techniscle Hoschule in Munich.
In 1978, he became president of the Monteiro Aranha group and two years later he conducted a big deal for a private group at the time: the sale of half of Monteiro Aranha’s equity stake in Volkswagen do Brasil to the government of Kuwait. After the Volkswagen transaction, the group, which already had investments in several sectors, expanded its business even further, ranging from investments in the automotive, telecommunications and sanitation areas, to the financial and petrochemical sectors.
He was the founder of the Institute for the Study of Industrial Development (IEDI), a business entity created in the late 1980s by a group of businessmen representing large national companies with the aim of discussing strategies for the country’s development.
In 1996, he left the presidency of the Monteiro Aranha group and assumed the presidency of the board of directors. He founded, in 1997, the Instituto Marquês de Salamanca (IMDS). In 2005, he was given the title of Count of Los Llanos by the King of Spain.
Elected in 2005 as president of the Commercial Association of Rio de Janeiro (ACRJ), he was reelected in 2007. He created the Rio Forum, with the main objective of formalizing micro and small entrepreneurs, and also acted in favor of the Simples Nacional Law. Ahead of ACRJ, he also participated in the campaign to elect Christ the Redeemer as one of the seven wonders of the modern world.
In addition to working in the Monteiro Aranha Group, Olavo Monteiro de Carvalho invested in other businesses such as the company EcoAqua Soluções, for industrial sanitation, and Bioexton, for the treatment of organic waste, and became an exporter of mangalarga marchador horses. He was also a member of the board of directors of Klabin and Ultrapar.
The wake and burial place of Olavo Monteiro de Carvalho have not yet been informed by the family.
