GranEnergia of Rio de Janeiro will open an office in Rotterdam, the Rotterdam Investment Agency announced on its twitter account. GranEnergia, the logistics and energy arm of Brazilian holding company GranInvestimentos, is controlled by the Gradin family. In October GranEnergia announced it will invest $500 million on three offshore oil repair platforms in the coming years. The first platform will start serving state-run Petroleo Brasileiro SA, known as Petrobras, in the Campos Basin in 2014.
GranEnergia is headed by Miguel Gradin. The Gradin family, headed by Miguel’s father Victor, is worth at least $1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, based on its 20.6 percent stake in Odebrecht SA. The company, Brazil’s biggest construction firm, had gross revenues of 84.4 billion reais in 2012. Victor Gradin joined Odebrecht, Brazil’s largest construction company, as chief financial officer in 1974, Forbes reports. Through a series of purchases he built up a large stake in the company, which has more than 150,000 employees and revenues of $35 billion. Victor’s sons, Bernado and Miguel, also worked as Odebrecht executives. Bernardo was president of Braskem, the petrochemical division of the group and Miguel led the Oil & Gas division.
The city of Rotterdam is home to a growing cluster of Brazilian enterprises, among which Braskem and several subsidiaries of Petrobras.
