José Eduardo dos Santos, a longtime Angolan president, died last Friday at the age of 79, reportedly ill for a long time. Dos Santos studied petroleum engineering in former Soviet-era Azerbaijan and served as Angola's foreign minister after independence in 1975 before being elected president in 1979. During his 38 years in power, Angola was in turmoil and controversy, and its economy was faltered by the ongoing civil war and the socialist policies of dos Santos.
After the official ceasefire of angola's civil war in 2002, dos Santos adopted a radical form of capitalism, and the country became one of the fastest-growing economies in the world over the next decade. However, these windfalls are rarely accessible to the angolan population, most of whom still live in poverty.
Between 2007 and 2010, at least $32 billion in oil revenues disappeared from Angola's government books between 2007 and 2010, and the group later tracked much of that money as "quasi-fiscal operations," according to the International Monetary Fund. It is against this backdrop that Dos Santos' daughter, Isabel dos Santos, became Africa's richest woman – at its peak in 2014, her fortune reached $3.7 billion.
After her father's retirement, Isabel's empire of wealth began to disintegrate. Her assets were frozen and she was accused of embezzlement and money laundering, and Forbes removed her from the list of the world's billionaires in 2021. In addition, an international court of arbitration appears to have ordered it to return $500 million worth of shares in Portugal's Galp Energy Company in July 2021. Isabelle has denied any wrongdoing and condemned all the allegations, saying there was a political motive behind it.
Here's a Loeb Award article published by Forbes on August 14, 2013 about how Isabelle dos Santos became Africa's richest woman in a short period of time.
On 27 May 2022, Isabelle dos Santos attended the 75th Cannes Film Festival.
--Kerry A. Dolan、Rafael Marques de Morais
Last December, Isabelle dos Santos hosted a party to commemorate his tenth wedding anniversary with Congolese businessman Sindika Dokolo. She invited dozens of friends and family, some of whom came specifically from Germany and Brazil. Together with hundreds of local guests, the men spent three days of luxury in Angola, including revelry at the Fortress of Sao Miguel in the country's capital, Luanda, and Sunday brunch on the beaches of the luxurious Mustulo Peninsula. According to one attendee, the invitation was packed in a sleek white box promising a 10th anniversary celebration that was "passionate, friendly and worth a hundred years."
It would be more apt to say "a $3 billion decennial." Currently, 40-year-old Isabel is Africa's only female billionaire and the continent's youngest billionaire. She quickly and systematically acquired a large stake in Strategic Industries in Angola, such as banking, cement, diamonds and telecommunications, which made her the most influential businessman in the country. Since more than half of her assets are held through Companies Listed in Portugal, her international credibility is strengthened as a result. In January, when Forbes announced that she was a billionaire, the government spread it as a national pride, proving that the nation of 19 million people had risen.
The real story, however, is how Isabelle acquired these riches. For the past year, Forbes has been tracking her path to riches, consulting dozens of documents and talking to dozens of local people. According to Forbes, every major investment in Angola by Isabel has come either from acquiring a stake in a company that wants to do business in the country or from a deal in which she was involved. Her story is a rare window into the tragic "rule of thieves" that is playing out in resource-rich countries around the world.
For President Dos Santos, it's a foolproof way to squeeze wealth out of his country while maintaining a presumptive arm's length. If the 71-year-old president is overthrown, he can recover assets from his daughter; If he died while in power, the daughter would be able to leave the stolen goods at home. If Isabel is generous enough, she can choose to share some of her wealth with the 7 half-siblings she knows, or not. These brothers and sisters are well known in Angola because of their mutual contempt.
Marcolino Moco, former prime minister of Angola, said in an interview with Forbes: "This shameless display of wealth is impossible to justify." There is no doubt that it was his father who created so much wealth. ”
Isabelle declined to be interviewed by Forbes about this article. While her representative did not respond to a detailed list of questions issued by Forbes a few months ago, she issued a statement last week that read: "Ms. Isabel dos Santos is an independent businesswoman and a private investor who represents only her own interests." Her investments in Angolan and/or Portuguese companies are transparent and through external entities such as well-known banks and law firms. ”
Meanwhile, the spokesman, in turn, accused the article's co-author, the Angolan investigative journalist Marques de Morais, of being activists with political agendas. In 1999, the Angolan government imprisoned him for publishing a series of articles critical of the government and for filing new criminal defamation charges against his 2011 book, Blood Diamonds: Corruption and Torture in Angola.
Finally, a representative of Isabel called any allegations of illegal transfers of wealth between her and the government "baseless and utterly absurd." This is likely to be the case, after all, when your father was in control and could decide which state assets were to be sold and at what price, he could legalize the theft of public resources with the help of a pen.
The failure of for a Forbes reporter to contact President José Eduardo dos Santos for comment is unfortunate because, as Marcolino Moco points out, Dos Santos "needs some explanation."
For three centuries, the Portuguese have been amassing wealth from this mineral-rich country on the southwest coast of Africa. Soon after winning independence in 1975, however, various factions in Angola began to fight each other for the same power. In this 27-year chaos, Dos Santos, who studied oil engineering in Former Soviet Azerbaijan and served as the government's foreign minister after Angola's independence, eventually became president in 1979. Since then, he has held the highest power in the country, making him the third longest-serving non-royal head of state in the world.
While attending school in Azerbaijan, President Dos Santos met his first wife, Tatiana Kukanova (who had been married at least twice), and whose first child, Isabel, was also born there. At the age of 6, Isabel moved into the presidential residence of Angola, and although the family's lifestyle was not extravagant by the profligature standards of African dictators (the president had at least 5 children from different mistresses), the family's Christmas tree was shipped from New York and $500,000 worth of champagne imported from a Lisbon restaurant owner. The level of pleasure was enough for Isabel to earn the nickname "Princess".
During Isabelle's upbringing, the Angolan economy was dragged down by two factors, namely the ongoing civil war and the socialist policies of dos Santos. "In the 1980s, supermarkets had only noodles on their shelves, and nothing else." Gerald Bender, an emeritus associate professor at the University of Southern California, said. He has been studying Angola since 1968. For the isolated Isabel, unable to see reality, she ended up at King's College London, where her mother was already a British citizen, lived in the UK and earned a bachelor's degree in engineering.
However, with the recurrence of angola's civil war in late 1992, Isabel hurried to the capital, Luanda, where she was said to have received death threats.
By the end of the 1990s, the Angolan civil war was gradually ending, and a ceasefire was officially declared in 2002. Later, like the former Soviets he had studied in the '60s, President Dos Santos began to embrace a "grasp of whatever you can do" capitalism. Over the past decade, Angola has been one of the fastest-growing economies in the world: from 2002 to 2011, the country's GDP grew at an annual rate of 11.6 percent, largely due to oil production more than doubling to 1.8 million barrels per day and the increase in government budgets to $69 billion from $6.3 billion a decade ago.
But predictably, only a fraction of these windfalls went to the population – about 70 per cent of Angolans live on less than $2 a day. According to the government's own statistics, 10 percent of the country's population is competing for food due to drought and government neglect. So where did the money go?
Start with a paranoid lifelong president, and Angola's national security apparatus absorbs more money from the government budget than health, education and agriculture combined. Obviously, a lot of the money was stolen. Between 2007 and 2010, at least $32 billion in oil revenues disappeared from Angola's government books, and the organization later tracked that most of the funds were used for "quasi-fiscal operations," according to the International Monetary Fund. Out of 176 countries in the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, Angola ranks 157th, behind participatory democracies like Yemen and Kyrgyzstan. It was in this environment that Isabel dos Santos' wealth surfaced, estimated at $3 billion.
Isabel dos Santos' business experience began in "Miami Beach," but it's not a Florida city, but a rustic-style beachfront bar and restaurant in Luanda that, from its name and mediocre food to its indifferent service, tries to mimic the city's style. In 1997, the restaurant's owner, Rui Barata, got into a conflict with health inspectors and tax officers, and his solution was to have Isabel, then 24, a partner. According to people at the time, he hoped her name would keep the pesky government regulator away from him. According to people familiar with the matter, Isabel's initial investment was negligible, but the restaurant was booming: 16 years later, it is still a popular place for people on weekends.
It is impossible for Isabel to miss the experience that people with gilded names can get equity. With the release of Angola's wealth, she did the following next:
First, grab the diamond industry.
Angola is the world's fourth-largest diamond producer, with mines in the northeast of the country estimating $1 billion in annual sales, and the sole concession holder of these mines is the state-owned company Endiama.
In 1999, President Dos Santos pushed Endiama to set up a diamond sales company. Three Israeli diamond dealers, including Lev Leviev, who Forbes estimates have a net worth of $1.5 billion, have pledged to provide expertise. According to British court records, the force behind the adventure was Russian arms dealer Arkady Gaydamak, who was a close associate of Dos Santos during the 1992-2002 civil war. The new company will be named Ascorp.
Levyev and partners including Qaedam will eventually receive a 24.5 percent stake in Ascorp, with the government retaining a 51 percent stake, so who is the most surprising major shareholder? Trans Africa Investment Services's (TAIS) annual report shows is that Isabel acquired a 24.5 percent stake in the Gibraltar investment firm she co-founded with her mother. (Levyev did not respond to a request for comment, and as of press time, reporters have not been able to reach Qaedam.) )
Angola's 2010 constitution, which prohibits the president from stealing public funds and corruption, appears to prohibit him from using his position for personal gain for his family. Regardless, the Angolan Council of Ministers, controlled by Isabel's father, approved Ascorp's deal. "In Angola, he is the law."
British court documents show Thatcorp is a cash cow that brings in millions of dollars in dividends every month. But according to Forbes' Gibraltar company registration record, is that with the "blood diamond" business under international scrutiny in the middle of the first decade of this century, Isabel handed over full control of TAIS to her mother, whose name has now changed to Iaconh Limited. It was a pretty good "parking space" – securely controlled by a British citizen, with Isabelle sitting in Angola as her mother's sole heir. The mother could not be reached for comment.
Telecommunications: What Father Knew Best.
In 1997, President Dos Santos issued a decree on the increasingly valuable telecommunications bands under his control: the Government must conduct a public tender for new telecommunications licences.
Just two years later, he issued a new decree that the government could issue licenses without public tendering, as long as the transferee was a joint venture with the government. Eleven months later, the president, with the support of a council of ministers, granted Unitel Telecom the right to become the country's first private mobile phone operator, on the condition that he had the sole authority to approve the project and decide on the company's shareholding structure, since the project involved state funds. The state-owned oil company took a 25 percent stake, and Isabel also got a 25 percent stake in itself. A spokesman for the latter said Isabel had funded the purchase of Unitel shares, but declined to say exactly how much. A year later, Portugal Telecom bought another 25 percent stake for $12.6 million.
This is an amazing investment. Mobile phones have revolutionized Africa, and As one of only two mobile phone network operators in Angola, Unitel has amassed 9 million subscribers. Last year, the company had revenues of $2 billion and was the largest private company in Angola. According to forbes' discussions with several analysts who follow Portugal Telecom, Isabel's shares are worth at least $1 billion.
Banking: Friends of Europe.
In 2005, as Isabel diversified her business interests in Angola, so did her strong network of patrons. Americo Amorim, a $4.3 billion Portuguese billionaire, has dedicated his life to expanding his family's business empire from cork oak to real estate, tourism and, above all, oil. The billionaire did not comment on the article, but he sought a deal in Angola early after the end of the civil war. When the Dos Santos family entered the banking industry in 2005, they worked with Amorim and Fernando Teles, a Portuguese who had been CEO of another Angolan bank. Banco Internacional de Credito's annual report shows that they jointly opened the bank.
Isabelle's father once again played a role: as chairman of the Council of Ministers, he formally authorized the bank to receive capital from foreign investment banks. Exactly how the money was raised is unclear, as there is no public record of who deposited the money in the bank. BIC's latest annual report shows that Amorim owns 25 percent of the bank, while various documents show is isabel holding another 25 percent through investment vehicles. Her spokesperson said she was one of the bank's founding members and was able to buy shares through her early business ventures through independent means.
In any case, the BIC was a great success, in large part because it had lent a sum to the Angolan government. In addition to more than $350 million in loans to private companies, BIC also provided $450 million to Angola, compared to $6.9 billion in assets in 2012. Based on the bank's book value listed in its latest annual report, Forbes estimates that Isabel's stake is worth at least $160 million. Reporters could not reach out to BIC people for comment.
Oil: Strange partnerships.
Oil is Angola's largest natural resource, producing 650 million barrels of oil per year, much of it exported. The state-owned oil company Sonangol has made a lot of profits as a result, and it is only a matter of time before the Dos Santos family wants to hitch a ride. In this process, Isabel's banking partner, billionaire Amelico Amorim, will play a key role.
In 2005, Amorim established a subsidiary, Amorim Energia, which would become the actual controller with 55 percent of the shares, while the remaining 45 percent, at least initially, was transferred to Sonangol through a Dutch holding company called Esperaza Holding B.V. At the end of that year, Amorim Energia acquired a 33.3 percent stake in Galp Energia, Portugal's former state-owned oil company, for about $1 billion, according to media reports. According to Global Witness, a nonprofit investigative firm, at the end of 2006, 40 percent of Esperaza's stake in Sonangol ended up in the hands of a Swiss company called Exem Holding.
Although no documents could be found to prove that Exem Holding was related to Isabel, there were traces of her everywhere. According to Global Witness, her husband, Sindika Dokolo, joined the board of directors of Amorim Energy at Esperaza's request. The chairman of Isabel's holding company also serves on the boards of Fidequity, a subsidiary of Exem Holding, as well as on the boards of entities such as Exem Energy and Exem Oil & Gas, according to public documents. Last year, Amorim Energia bought another 5 percent stake in Galp for $726 million. Isabel's 6.9% stake in Galp was recently valued at $924 million.
Cement: Safeguarding the "public interest".
For most of president Dos Santos' tenure, Angola had only one cement plant, owned by a company called Nova Cimangola. By mid-2004, the government owned 39.8 percent of it, Sonangol's bank BAI owned 9.5 percent, and the remaining 49 percent owned by Swiss company Scanang, which was in the process of being acquired by Portuguese cement company Cimpor.
However, the government began to demand a larger stake because it felt the factory was a strategic asset for the post-war reconstruction of the country. On 29 October 2006, the Ministerial Council of Angola adopted resolution 78/06, approving the payment of $74 million for the acquisition of Cimpor, declaring that the expenditure was necessary to preserve the "public interest, restore legitimacy and maintain the equity control of angolan state entities over Nova Cimangola". According to an Angolan newspaper, the $74 million payment came from BIC Bank, which Amorim and Isabel own half of the bank. Today, the Angolan government will own 89% of Cimpor, while BAI and Angolan individuals will own the remaining 11%.
But what happened afterwards suggests that the bigger goal of the takeover was not to give Angola more stakes, but to give some Angolans more stakes. Prior to the approval of the Angolan Council of Ministers, a company called Ciminvest was incorporated in Angola. According to Ciminvest's articles of incorporation, it was initially the responsibility of the president's former legal counsel. While Amelico Amorim once owned about 30 percent of Ciminvest, his representatives confirmed that he had transferred his own shares in 2009 and was reluctant to comment on who took over the shares and how much money was paid.
It is now widely believed that the real owners of the shares are Isabelle and her husband, although detailed ownership documents have not been made public. Still, Isabel acknowledged in her resume that she is chairman of Nova Cimangola's board of directors and controls the company through Ciminvest. Without much trouble and no apparent price to pay, the company, which the president authorized to be controlled by a "state entity," was controlled by Isabel.
Isabelle dos Santos' fortunes are more than just assets that are stored for emergency, and these assets can bring in huge dividends, allowing her to buy more assets in businesses that seem unrelated to the development of Angola, such as her $500 million stake in portuguese media company ZON.
Meanwhile, her father has taken legal steps to protect himself from all predation. Under Angolan law, President Dos Santos' decision to license Unitel for his daughter's personal benefit could be seen as an abuse of power. To mitigate the consequences, he tampered with the law in 1992 to reduce the grounds for the charges to two: taking bribes or betraying the state. Technically, he could argue that he had not violated either of those two rules in Unitel's case.
The bigger strategy behind this, though, is to cast Isabelle as a hero. In January, after Forbes declared her a billionaire, the Angolan regime's mouthpiece (and the country's only daily newspaper), the Angolan daily, declared: "While we have done our best to eradicate poverty in Angola, we are pleased that businesswoman Isabelle dos Santos has become a benchmark in the world's financial world." This is good for Angola and makes the Angolan people proud. "But Angolans should feel ashamed, not proud.
The author of this article, Rafael Marques de Morais, is an investigative journalist in Angola.
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