by Martine Gerber-Lemaire
It happens in the best of families. The Espirito Santo family, however, hasn’t encountered trouble for the first time.
In the 1970s, when major industries in Portugal were nationalized, including Banco Espirito Santo, leading members of the family fled into exile, where they restarted their fortune. That is how ESI holding was incorporated in 1975 in Luxembourg, the top holding company of the Espirito Santo Group (GES), to be followed by two main sub-holdings: Espirito Santo Financial Group (1984) and Espirito Santo Resources (1983), which was to become Rio Forte in 2009.
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