Pik botha biography of jose

Portuguese and South African businessman, investor and art collector (Born 1944)

In this Portuguese name, the first or maternal family name is Rodrigues and the second or paternal family name is Berardo.

José Manuel Rodrigues "Joe" BerardoGCIH, ComIH (born 4 July 1944), is a Portuguese and South African businessman, investor, and art collector. According to Portuguese magazine Exame, he had an estimated net worth of €598 million in 2010, making him one of the wealthiest people in Portugal at the time. Starting around the 2010–2014 Portuguese financial crisis when both the Portuguese Republic finances and banking system collapsed, he has been involved in several controversies and legal issues which have led to the arrestment of his bank accounts, his companies' assets and himself due to ongoing legal investigations.

Life

Early life

Berardo was born in 1944 at Santa Luzia, Funchal, Madeira, Portugal, the son of Manuel Berardo Gomes and Ana Rodrigues. 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.

Return to Portugal

As a very wealthy stock investor, Joe Berardo was a central personality on the Portuguese stock exchange in the 2000s, and became noted for his remarks as activist shareholder and the media frenzy it generated at times. His businesses included hotels, tobacco, animal food, telecommun

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JOHANNESBURG — Roelof “Pik” Botha, the last foreign minister of South Africa’s apartheid era and a contradictory figure who staunchly defended white minority rule but recognized that change was inevitable, died on Friday at age 86.

Botha died in “the early hours of the morning” at his home after an illness, his son, also named Roelof, told South Africa’s eNCA news outlet.

The noise of Western doors slam- ming in South Africa's face has drawn attention away from Latin America, where several doors have remained quietly ajar. While the re- gion's governments have not gener- ally welcomed the apartheid regime as an official ally-most do not even host a South African mission-this has not stopped many from establish- ing economic and military ties. The dictatorships of Chile and Paraguay have long been friendly with South Africa, but in recent years a number of civilian regimes have responded favorably to Pretoria's long and atten- tive cultivation, including several that have publicly condemned apart- heid. The most spectacular triumphs for the white regime are the pending de- livery by Brazil of 200 combat ve- hicles, worth $16 million, and the reported purchase from Argentina of Mirage-3 fighter aircraft. The former is especially significant as Brazil, the Third World's largest arms exporter, maintains an official policy of ex- cluding South Africa from its arms transactions. In 1980 Latin American nations' total exports to South Africa amounted to $94.4 million; in 1987 this had risen to $419 million, not including suspected covert military sales. On August 9, 1985, Jose Sar- ney, the president of Brazil, issued a decree prohibiting export of arms, crude oil and petroleum derivatives to South Africa. A diplomatic row be- tween the two governments followed. Yet recently the conservative South African newspaper, the Sunday Times, boasted that last year South African imports to Brazil rose from $50 million to $60.5 million while exports rose from $40 millin to $80.9 million in the same period. Ironically, these increases came during a period when military re- gimes were giving way to civilian governments who were shoring up their postures of nonalignment. Ar- gentina, for instance, had sales of $71 million to South Africa in the first 11 months of 1985. In 1980, under mili- tary rule, Argentina's exp