Alejandro Santo Domingo Davila, the son of Julio Mario Santo Domingo and his second wife Beatriz Davila, was born on the 13th of February 1977 in the United States. The Santo Domingo family had roots in the Caribbean city of Barranquilla and was one of the richest and most influential families in Colombia for the whole 20th Century.
The father of Alejandro was born in Panama in 1924 and when he was nine years old Mario, the grandfather of Alejandro, bought the Barranquilla & Bolivar brewery. Julio Mario graduated from the Phillips Academy in Massachusetts in 1943 and helps his father with the family business. In 1952 he marries his first wife Edyala Braga and have their first son together, Julio Mario Santo Domingo, Jr. Braga in 1958.
Three years after the marriage they decide to get divorced and when his brother dies Julio Mario takes control of the family business. He sees things differently from his father and in 1966 he sells the Aguila brewery to Bavaria for stock. His good management led to him being named chairman of Bavaria in 1972.
In 1973 his father dies and after two years of mourning he marries his second wife Beatrice Davila, the mother of Andres and Alejandro, who is the main protagonist in our story. The same year Alejandro was born the family receives control of the Avianca airline.
During the second half of the century Julio Mario managed to transform the regional brewery into a beer monopoly spreading over the whole country and the profits were funneled into various companies in Colombia, Avianca being one of the most important ones.
In 1978 Julio Mario became the Colombia ambassador to China and during this time his business sense was even more evident as well as his friendly personality, becoming a friend of artists, writers and politicians from across the globe. The same features would be learned and continued by his sons who were philanthropic in gestures but also had a knack for romantic escapades.
In 1986 the Caracol radio station is acquired through Bavaria and by this time Alejandro went to the exclusive Hotchkiss School, after which he completed his studies with a Bachelor of Arts in History from Harvard University.
He began to work in the family business and gradually take the managing responsibilities of the Santo Domingo Group, the family conglomerate. The rival brewery Postobon’s Leona was purchased in 1996 and another major deal is struck in 2004 when the Avianca airline is sold for the sum of $65 million.
In 2005 Bavaria brewery was sold to SABMiller in return for stock and this was the first important deal where Alejandro was the main negotiator and received 14% stake. The Santo Domingo Group nominated him for the board in the same year after the transaction.
The young financier later became the chairman of the board of Grupo Empresarial Bavaria S.A. under SABMiller and he also serves as the Vice-Chairman of the Latin American arm of the brewing company and the Managing Director for the Quadrant Capital Advisors. Aside from these main occupations he is also in the board of Valoram S. A. and is a Board of Trustees member for the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
In 2010 the Santo Domingo family invests in the BTG Pactual of Brazil, a financial company operating in the markets of investment banking, Wealth Management and Asset Management with revenue of $6.7 billion in 2014.
Julio Mario was diagnosed with cancer in October 2008 and died in 2011, leaving his fortune to Alejandro, his brother Andres, their mother Beatrice Davila and to the grandchildren from the first marriage Tatiana and Julio.
Andres, the brother of Alejandro became a music industrialist and was in the news in 2008 when his wedding to the socialite Lauren Davis became a society spectacle, covered extensively in the US Vogue magazine since Lauren was a contributing editor here.
Alejandro has a lot of investments in Colombia with stakes in Caracol Television, Gases del Caribe and they are controlled via the publicly traded holding company Valorem. They have stakes in the Corpbanca of Chile, the BTG Pactual of Brazil and Inmobiliaria Colonial of Spain and the family received over $1.5 billion in dividends from SABMiller alone since their merger in 2005. The family owns its private island on the Caribbean coast of Colombia in Baru.
They have assets like the Terranum real estate firm in Colombia and investments through venture capital in the Dafiti online fashion retailer from Brazil. It is unclear how much stake each of the family members has in SABMiller since they are held through BevCo, a company registered in the British Virgin Islands that didn’t disclose any public information and they only said that you could consider the family wealth as a unified fortune with Alejandro leading it.
Mr. Davila is a part of the Board of Directors in the Colombia’s Endeavor international non-profit development organization which seeks to support and find entrepreneurs in emerging markets. He is also a member of the Latin America Conservation Council of The Nature Conservancy and of Board of Directors member in the DKMS Americas non-profit organization that is considered the largest bone marrow donor center in the world.
Other philanthropic activities of Alejandro are to serve as treasurer of Aid for the AIDS Charity and he is a member of the board in the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Initially Forbes estimated the worth of Alejandro at around $10 billion but after further information about the fortune splitting it was dropped to a current $4.4 billion which led to the addition of the brother Andres as well as his niece and nephew to the billionaires list.
He is currently unmarried, with no children and due to the way in which wealth is spread in the family it was difficult to estimate the net worth of each member. Becoming one of the most eligible billionaire bachelors in the world at the age of 37, he was presented as an avid art collector with his private island, a Harvard grad and someone who spends their time in the company of beauties like Amanda Hearst or the Sports Illustrated model Julie Henderson.
