The origins of the Leonetti Family, earls of Santojanni, are chronicled in parish and municipal records in Caserta, Italy, in the 14th Century and, in those same archives, notary certified records of trading dated from 1721 can also be found. In 1789 the Family was purveyor to the Kingdom of Naples and already traded across Europe. Family archives show negotiations for asset backed guarantees, interest rates according to bank reliability, performance bonds, storage agreements and many indentures still in use today. The Family later expanded its trading to fruit, vegetables and livestock and the present heir, Tommaso, added energy and oil & gas related commodities trading.
The first testimonies of the Matarazzo Family, earls of Licosa, date from the 12th Century in Latin documents created by Franciscus Mataratius, Secretary of State of the City of Perugia, Italy, and in 1536 Tiberius Matarazzo was knighted baron by Emperor Charles V; later the family was later bestowed the title of count and the domain of Castellabate, south of Naples.
In 1881 Francesco Matarazzo left for Brazil from Castellabate (Italy) with a stock of lard for trading. His ship sunk off the coast of Santos (Brazil) and the young Francesco lost all his assets. Undaunted he set up a lard production facility and already within the first year he was even canning this produce: this innovation provided him with proceeds that he was able to reinvest in the import of wheat from America and rice from China. The revenues from those enterprises enabled him to build mills to process this wheat and soon he developed a vertically integrated industrial and trading conglomerate: import, mill, process, produce and trade various agricultural produce and related commodities.
In year 1890 Francesco founded what was later renamed IRFM: Industrie Riunite Francesco Matarazzo (United Matarazzo Industries). By 1905 he had already incorporated his 2nd bank (Banca Italiana del Brasile, owning 73% of the shares) and was worth 20 BN$ (in 1930!!). By then he had become by far the wealthiest man in both Brazil and in Italy. He had created a veritable industrial empire.
In 1934 he built and operated the first refinery of South America in Cubatao (later sold to Petrobras whichcurrently operates it); this marked the beginning of the Family’s involvement in the oil & gas industry. By 1937, at the death of the founder worth 20BN$ (of those days), IRFM traded over 83 commodities worldwide, owned the largest merchant fleet in the world, possessed its own banks, held 365 different industries and employed 27,000 workers. By 1954 Francesco Jr. had furtherexpanded his father’s considerable assets reaching the apex of the Matarazzo fortunes when Encyclopaedia Britannica ranked the family the 5th wealthiest in the world, behind Getty, Rockefeller, Mellon and Ford
