Lia Maria Aguiar – Billionaire

Lia Maria Aguiar inherited a banking fortune from her late father, Amador Aguiar, the founder of Bradesco, one of Brazil’s largest banks. She and her twin sister Lina and her sister Maria Angela were adopted by Aguiar after being abandoned in front of a Bradesco branch in Sao Paulo. Amador Aguiar died in 1991. Amador founded the philanthropic Bradesco Foundation in 1956 to benefit education in Brazil. In 2008, Lia started her own foundation, the Lia Maria Aguiar Foundation, to benefit the city of Campos do Jordao, where she has been living since the early 1990s. The sisters also have shares of Bradespar, the bank’s non-financial arm, which holds a majorstake in Vale SA, the world’s largest iron-ore producer.

Brazilian businesswoman Lia Maria Aguiar has an estimated net worth of $1.3 billion as of March 2013 according to Forbes. She is known to be the adopted daughter of Amador Aguiar, a deceased Brazilian banker. Amador Aguiar founded Bradesco bank which is considered as the largest bank in Brazil.

When Amador died in 1991, it sparked a legal dispute between his three daughters and his recently married wife. He and his wife, who was 40 years his junior, got marrid only five months before Amador’s death. The wife requested that his three daughters should undergo DNA testing to prove his paternity to them, as well as to disqualify them from their inheritance. The three won the case. Lina and Lia Aguiar immediately became billionaires while their other sister Maria Angela did not make it to the billionaire’s list. The two’s wealth were significantly higher than Maria Angela’s because they own stakes in Bradesco Bank.

Source:

1. forbes

2. therichest