Santo Domingo oversees the fortune of Colombia's richest family through New York-based investment company Quadrant Capital. The family owns stakes in Belgium's global beermaker AB InBev, Chile's Corpbanca and Spain's Inmobiliaria Colonial. They also control Caracol Television as well as other businesses.
The majority of the Santo Domingo family fortune is derived from a 5% stake in publicly traded beer manufacturer Anheuser-Busch InBev, which they received when SABMiller merged with AB InBev in 2016. The stake is held by Bevco, a Luxembourg-based holding company owned by the Santo Domingo family, according to its website.
The value of the Santo Domingos's cash and other assets is based on an analysis of dividends, market performance, insider transactions, taxes and charitable contributions.The family has collected more than $3 billion in dividends as of July 2023, based on an analysis of company filings and Bloomberg data. Other assets include the family's investments in their home country controlled through holding company Valorem.
They directly own stakes in Spain's Inmobiliaria Colonial, the US's Keurig Dr Pepper and Amsterdam-based JDE Peet's. They have also co-invested with private equity firms to hold stakes in US food company Kraft Heinz and margarine-maker Upfield. Bevco's co-investments are valued based on their combined reported value as of Dec. 31, 2022, as reported by the company in its 2022 consolidated results.
Bevco's debt totaled 1.3 billion euros ($1.4 billion) as of Dec. 31, 2022, according to filings with Luxembourg's business registry. A liability is included to account for that figure.
A press official declined to make the family available for comment on the net worth calculation. The family group is considered sole owner of all the assets under their control and the official said it's accurate to consider the wealth as a unified fortune with Alejandro as its head.
The Santo Domingo family, with roots in the Caribbean city of Barranquilla, has been one of Colombia's richest and most influential clans over much of the past century. Born in 1977, Alejandro began to take control of the family fortune before the death of his father Julio Mario in October 2011.
The late patriarch had been responsible for turning the family's regional brewery, Bavaria, into a countrywide beer monopoly. He funneled its profits into dozens of companies across Colombia in the second half of the 20th century. The family sold Bavaria to SABMiller in return for stock in 2005 -- a deal in which Alejandro had an important role.
Onetime ambassador to China, Julio Mario was as famous for his business acumen as for his jet-setting; he counted writers, artists and politicians from across Europe and the Americas as friends. His offspring have continued the tradition, appearing in society pages as much for their philanthropy as for their high-profile romances.
Alejandro, a graduate of Harvard University, lives in New York. Among the other surviving Santo Domingos are his brother Andres; their mother, Beatrice Davila; and the patriarch's grandchildren from his first marriage, Tatiana and Julio.