 |
| Antonio Oladeinde Fernandez |
Since the death of famed billionaire, Antonio Oladeinde Fernandez, speculations have risen about the vast wealth he left behind and who the heirs to his estate are. The businessman-diplomat died in a private hospital in Brussels, Belgium on September 1 after battling with an undisclosed illness for several months. He died in the presence of his wife, Halima Maude Fernandez.
Reports say Fernandez who was one of Nigeria’s most reclusive and mysterious moneybags, was worth a whopping $8.7 billion. Very little was known about the intensely private Nigerian diplomat who formerly served as the Central African Republic’s ambassador to the United Nations. And if Fernandez was reclusive, information about his children and heirs to his billions are almost non-existent.
If African traditions are to be followed, Halima Maude Fernandez, his wife until death will inherit a large chunk of the estate with the children from the two marriages getting slices. Though Fernandez who was born in 1936 is survived by 9 children, several grandchildren and great grandchildren, not much is known about them.
Between 1982 and 1984 he served as advisor to the Angolan government on economic matters. He was subsequently appointed as deputy permanent representative of Mozambique in the United Nations in 1984. Between 1992 and 1995 he served as a special adviser to the president of Mozambique on International Economic Matters.
The man who hardly granted interviews, divided his time between lavish homes in France, Scotland and the United States but he spent his last days in Belgium. Of his high-profile friends, Fernandez was believed to enjoy a close friendship to Angola’s president, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, in whose country, Angola, his natural resources company Petro Inett, had extensive gold, diamond and oil mining interests in Angola.
He also owned Sandcat Enterprises, View, Grantdale, Inuola, Sandcat Goldfields, Voguehope, Woods, Goldfields, and Petro-Inett Equatorial Guinea. There are also a string of properties, including a £3 million seven storey Georgian town house in Edinburgh; a £4 million New York estate; a 25-acre £1 million 19th-century Chateau de Bois Feuillette in Paris; a £10 million property on the Premium Point peninsula, New York, among others.
In 2003, Fernandez’s former wife Aduke Fernandez, reportedly sued him for close to $400 million in a record divorce fight. Though the divorce suit parted the veil and gave the public a peep into the privacy of one of the richest persons in the world, very little was heard about the case afterwards. That was until 2010 when he put up one of his properties in New Rochelle for sale for $12 million. Mr. Fernandez remarried in 2003 to Halima while Aduke died 10 years later.
One of his associates, Ovation Publisher Dele Momodu described him as “one of the greatest Africans…who owned an island in New York and the road leading to the island is named after him”
The billionaire hated to hug the limelight, limiting his outdoor engagements to the pent houses of his castles and the privacy of his yachts. At the height of his fame, he hosted Nelson Mandela privately in his house.
0 comments:
Post a Comment