“I am connected to the divine, to these forces here,” Joao Carlos Cavalcanti, the Brazilian mining magnate, said as he swept an arm out across the lily pad-covered lake behind his US$15 million mansion.
A gentle breeze rustled through his thick white beard. Cavalcanti, 59, stood on the pier and closed his eyes for a moment. A uniformed servant, one of a staff of 15, hovered nearby with hors d’oeuvres and nonalcoholic drinks. She knew better than to disturb a man who meditates for three hours a day and constantly refers to himself as a “mystical” person who draws strength from “the cosmos” — when he is not collecting expensive cars, fine paintings and other playthings.
Minutes later, as Cavalcanti made his way back up the hill, through his Thai and Indonesian-inspired gardens with Buddhist statues, his cell phone rang. Another banker was calling, this one from Canada, eager to do business with one of Brazil’s newest billionaires. Cavalcanti explained that he had big plans of his own, to form a “world mining bank” with Merrill Lynch and raise capital for exploration projects around the world.
This is the life of the nouveau billionaire in Brazil — the life that Cavalcanti said he dreamed of from the age of 9 and from the time he immersed himself in biographies of Henry Ford, John Jacob Astor and John Rockefeller.
A geologist by training, Cavalcanti — who goes by J.C. — applied his knowledge and considerable gumption to discovering huge reserves of iron ore and other minerals. Today he pegs his net worth at US$1.2 billion, placing him among the 20 richest men in Brazil. Before this year is out, he vows to have US$1 billion in liquid investments, to go with his 39 cars, 10 homes and two airplanes.
Cavalcanti, the son of a railroad-track laborer, seemed highly unlikely to become a billionaire. He spent his early years in a rustic two-bedroom house in Cacule, a small farming town in Bahia state. At 24, he concluded that Bahia was too small for him, so he left for a consulting job in Sao Paulo with a German firm. He spent Sundays driving the wealthy neighborhoods, photographing mansions in Morumbi and in Jardim Europa and admiring the BMWs and Porsches in the showrooms.
“I always had a vision of what I wanted to have,” he said.
Later, he began prospecting on his own for minerals. By 2003, with cash to support his search drying up, he sold a beach house and an apartment to raise investment funds. The gamble paid off in 2004, when he discovered a huge iron ore reserve back home in Bahia. Other geologists had long given up on the area; the giant mining company Vale, which owned a magnesium reserve close by, had missed the iron deposit, Cavalcanti said.
By his telling, he discovered the reserve while driving at night mostly alone in a four-wheel-drive truck, relying on old regional maps dating from 1937.
Mining industry publications report that Cavalcanti later sold the reserve, which contains at least 1.8 billion tons of ore, to an Indian miner, Pramod Agarwal, for some US$360 million.
The son of Italian immigrants, Cavalcanti said he was building his 11th home in the family’s native Tuscany.
For all his lavish possessions, Cavalcanti described himself as a disciplined soul who long ago forsook the playboy life for a deeply spiritual one. He does not drink or smoke. He described soccer, the passion of most Brazilians, as “a waste of time.” He said he detested Carnival, the annual street bacchanal for which Salvador is widely known.
He met his wife, Renilce, at a family wedding when he was 12 years old. He said they shared a passion for studying spiritual gurus that spanned the gamut. The library of his Salvador home is filled with books from authors like Joel Goldsmith, the American Christian Scientist.
He and his wife say all living things should be protected.
Cavalcanti said he spurned a deal with a mining entrepreneur in 2004 after the man crushed a large ant with his fist at a Salvador restaurant.
“I told him I would no longer do business with him,” Cavalcanti said. “He thought I was crazy.”
MORE VISITORS: The Tourism Administration said that it is seeing positive prospects in its efforts to expand the tourism market in North America and Europe Taiwan has been ranked as the cheapest place in the world to travel to this year, based on a list recommended by NerdWallet. The San Francisco-based personal finance company said that Taiwan topped the list of 16 nations it chose for budget travelers because US tourists do not need visas and travelers can easily have a good meal for less than US$10. A bus ride in Taipei costs just under US$0.50, while subway rides start at US$0.60, the firm said, adding that public transportation in Taiwan is easy to navigate. The firm also called Taiwan a “food lover’s paradise,” citing inexpensive breakfast stalls
TRADE: A mandatory declaration of origin for manufactured goods bound for the US is to take effect on May 7 to block China from exploiting Taiwan’s trade channels All products manufactured in Taiwan and exported to the US must include a signed declaration of origin starting on May 7, the Bureau of Foreign Trade announced yesterday. US President Donald Trump on April 2 imposed a 32 percent tariff on imports from Taiwan, but one week later announced a 90-day pause on its implementation. However, a universal 10 percent tariff was immediately applied to most imports from around the world. On April 12, the Trump administration further exempted computers, smartphones and semiconductors from the new tariffs. In response, President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration has introduced a series of countermeasures to support affected
CROSS-STRAIT: The vast majority of Taiwanese support maintaining the ‘status quo,’ while concern is rising about Beijing’s influence operations More than eight out of 10 Taiwanese reject Beijing’s “one country, two systems” framework for cross-strait relations, according to a survey released by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday. The MAC’s latest quarterly survey found that 84.4 percent of respondents opposed Beijing’s “one country, two systems” formula for handling cross-strait relations — a figure consistent with past polling. Over the past three years, opposition to the framework has remained high, ranging from a low of 83.6 percent in April 2023 to a peak of 89.6 percent in April last year. In the most recent poll, 82.5 percent also rejected China’s
PLUGGING HOLES: The amendments would bring the legislation in line with systems found in other countries such as Japan and the US, Legislator Chen Kuan-ting said Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Kuan-ting (陳冠廷) has proposed amending national security legislation amid a spate of espionage cases. Potential gaps in security vetting procedures for personnel with access to sensitive information prompted him to propose the amendments, which would introduce changes to Article 14 of the Classified National Security Information Protection Act (國家機密保護法), Chen said yesterday. The proposal, which aims to enhance interagency vetting procedures and reduce the risk of classified information leaks, would establish a comprehensive security clearance system in Taiwan, he said. The amendment would require character and loyalty checks for civil servants and intelligence personnel prior to
RSS