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Silvio Santos: from street vendor to the near-collapse

Son of immigrants, a street vendor at 14, Silvio Santos built a group. In 2010, he pledged all his assets to cover the Panamericano crisis.

bairogonzalez.com team, drawing on Bairo's story · Published

Senor Abravanel was born on December 12, 1930, in Lapa, in Rio de Janeiro, the son of Jewish immigrants who had come from the eastern Mediterranean. Brazil came to know him as Silvio Santos.

The no

The first no was the lack of money at home. In the mid-1940s, still a teenager, he went to sell on the streets of downtown Rio to help his family. He was a camelô, a street vendor, at a time when unlicensed street trade was hounded by inspectors.

The biographies tell that a director of the city's inspection service, Renato Meira Lima, instead of confiscating the young man's goods, was impressed by his voice and recommended him for an announcer audition at Rádio Guanabara. Silvio came first, stayed only a short time, because he earned more on the street, and went back to selling. The episode comes from biographical accounts, not from a document of the time.

The heaviest no came much later, when he was already one of the country's biggest businessmen. In 2010, Brazil's Central Bank identified a hole of about 4.3 billion reais at Banco Panamericano, part of his group, the result of accounting fraud by the institution's directors.

What they did

From the microphone and the street, Silvio built a career as a broadcaster and salesman. With Manoel de Nóbrega, he got involved in Baú da Felicidade, a prize booklet paid in installments; he later took over the business alone, bought out his partner and paid off his debt. In 1981, he obtained the broadcasting concession that gave rise to SBT.

Faced with the 2010 crisis, his decision caught the market's attention: instead of letting the bank fall, he pledged all his assets, including SBT and Baú, as collateral for a loan of 2.5 billion reais from the Credit Guarantee Fund (FGC). In 2011, he sold his stake in the bank to BTG Pactual and managed to release the collateral. Silvio Santos died on August 17, 2024.

What this has to do with Bairo

Bairo Leandro Gonzalez Martinez recognizes two things in Silvio.

The first is the son of immigrants who started from zero, on the street, talking to people. Bairo is himself an immigrant, a Colombian in Brazil, and says he started over more than once, without footing and without a safety net.

The second is responsibility. When one of Bairo's businesses didn't hold up, he says fifty people depended on him. He didn't complain about the partner, the system or luck. He decided to keep going. It's in Fifty lives.

The parallel is one of attitude, not size. And this page doesn't deal with financial products or make recommendations of any kind.

Read also: Capoeira was the bridge · No is the foundation of yes

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