The businessman Abilio Diniz He died this Sunday (18), due to respiratory failure due to pneumunitis. Diniz had been hospitalized for a few weeks. He began to feel ill in Aspen and had to rush back to Brazil on a plane with an Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
The executive became a celebrity by mixing his own life path with the history of retail in Brazil. From the first Po de Acar Pennsula Investimentos store, without ever moving away from the sector he helped to consolidate, Diniz built one of the biggest fortunes in the country in the eyes of the national public. With a fortune of US$2 billion, according to Forbes, Abilio ranked 1526th in the world.
Ablio Diniz’s career
Abilio Diniz was born on December 28, 1936. He graduated in 1956 from the FGV School of Business Administration and, upon finishing his degree, accepted his father’s proposal to start working in a new family business, Supermercado Po de Sugar.
Before that, his father had founded Doceria Po de Acar, which opened in 1948 and where Ablio had worked since he was a boy. For this reason, mainly, Ablio refused the title of founder of Po de Acar, without ever taking away from himself the merit of the group’s expansion. At the end of the 1950s, the first store in the market was created, on Av. Brigadeiro Luiz Antnio, in So Paulo.
Right from the beginning, the appetite for pioneering had already become clear. In the 1960s and 1970s, Po de Acar accumulated a series of achievements. It was the first chain in the sector to have a store in a shopping center, to have a pharmacy inside the establishment and to operate 24 hours a day. Also during this period, Abilio brought the concept of hypermarkets to Brazil through the Jumbo banner, a venture that copied the Carrefour model. After that, it also acquired the two pioneers Peg-Pag and Sirva-se.
In 1980, Abilio left the business due to family disagreements, returning in the 1990s, having to rebuild the business after the Collor Plan. It was at this time that the mantra cut, focus and simplify emerged, with an eye on recovering the business.
At the time, Ablio cut dozens of directors. The number of employees fell from 45 thousand in 1990 to 17 thousand in 1991. The car fleet, benefiting the executives, was sold. The number of stores went from 626 to 262. In the same decade, an event also took place that would mark Abilio’s life forever. In 1989, in the midst of the difficulties the business was going through, the executive was kidnapped and spent six days in captivity in the south zone of the capital of São Paulo.
The executive already had some visibility in the media, but because he fought martial arts and knew how to shoot, he thought he was protected. After 36 hours of negotiations, the businessman was released.
Po de Acar IPO
In 1995, the businessman was instrumental in the IPO of Grupo Po de Acar and, in 1997, he began trading the company’s shares in New York, once again marking the path of pioneering. It was the first 100% nationally controlled company to issue a global share issue.
In 2006, the executive negotiated the purchase of Atacado, a wholesale chain aimed at classes C and D. Even with revenues in the billions, the GPA board of directors did not approve, and he purchased the Assa chain shortly afterwards.
Still in the appetite for consolidation, three years later, Abilio bought Casas Bahia and Ponto Frio, forming the largest electronics network in Brazil. The acquisition was made on good terms, but the Klein family regretted the contract, in a fight that only ended when Abilio left the company.
In the 2010s, Abilio fought one of the biggest battles of his life: the takeover of Po de Acar by the French group Casino. Emotionally and financially, the fight cost the partners around 500 million reais, according to the book Abilio, Determined, Ambicioso, Polmico, by author Cristiane Correa.
Viso do futuro
With vigor to spare, Abilio, since leaving Grupo Po de Acar, has started a series of new professional ventures. One of them was BRF, a company in which he became an investor and advisor. Furthermore, he invested time and money in Pennsula Participaes and, finally, arrived at Carrefour, establishing his feet in retail again. In 2017, the businessman’s investment vehicle increased its stake in Carrefour Brasil to 12%, reaching a limit of 16%, in addition to obtaining a stake in the company’s headquarters.
In the following decade, more personal challenges. In 2022, Abilio lost one of his six children, Joo Paulo Diniz, who died as a result of a heart attack. The executive remained a media personality. In addition to maintaining a blog about sports on the UOL portal, he was hired in 2022 to lead the interview program ‘Olhares Brasileiros’, on CNN Brasil.
Abilio leaves behind five children: Ana Maria, Adriana and Pedro Paulo, from his first marriage with Maria Auriluce Falleiros, and Rafaela and Miguel, from his second marriage with economist Geyze Marchesi.
*With information from Exame/ Cover photo: Reproduction/ Instagram
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