Alejandro Santo Domingo (born 13 February 1977) is a Colombian-American businessman. He manages the Santo Domingo Group, his family’s conglomerate, with his net worth estimated by Forbes to be US$2.6 billion as of May 2023. He is a board member of several companies and organizations, such as Bavaria Brewery, Caracol Televisión, El Espectador, the Wildlife Conservation Society, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Museum, and the Barefoot Foundation. Santo Domingo also owns a minority stake in the Washington Commanders of the National Football League (NFL). He is married to British socialite Lady Charlotte Wellesley.
The majority of the Santo Domingo family fortune is derived from a 5% stake in publicly traded beer manufacturer Anheuser-Busch InBev, which they received when SABMiller merged with AB InBev in 2016. The stake is held by Bevco, a Luxembourg-based holding company owned by the Santo Domingo family, according to its website.
The value of the Santo Domingos’s cash and other assets is based on an analysis of dividends, market performance, insider transactions, taxes and charitable contributions.The family has collected more than $3 billion in dividends as of July 2023, based on an analysis of company filings and Bloomberg data. Other assets include the family’s investments in their home country controlled through holding company Valorem.
They directly own stakes in Spain’s Inmobiliaria Colonial, the US’s Keurig Dr Pepper and Amsterdam-based JDE Peet’s. They have also co-invested with private equity firms to hold stakes in US food company Kraft Heinz and margarine-maker Upfield. Bevco’s co-investments are valued based on their combined reported value as of Dec. 31, 2022, as reported by the company in its 2022 consolidated results.
Bevco’s debt totaled 1.3 billion euros ($1.4 billion) as of Dec. 31, 2022, according to filings with Luxembourg’s business registry. A liability is included to account for that figure.
A press official declined to make the family available for comment on the net worth calculation. The family group is considered sole owner of all the assets under their control and the official said it’s accurate to consider the wealth as a unified fortune with Alejandro as its head.
Biography
Santo Domingo was born on 13 February 1977 in New York City. He is the son of Colombian billionaire Julio Mario Santo Domingo and his second wife, Colombian socialite Beatrice Dávila. He is the brother of Andres Santo Domingo Dávila and half-brother of Julio Mario Santo Domingo Braga, who was the only child of Julio Mario Santo Domingo and his first wife, Brazilian socialite Edyala Braga. He was educated at the Hotchkiss School, followed by a bachelor’s degree in history from Harvard University
The late patriarch had been responsible for turning the family’s regional brewery, Bavaria, into a countrywide beer monopoly. He funneled its profits into dozens of companies across Colombia in the second half of the 20th century. The family sold Bavaria to SABMiller in return for stock in 2005 — a deal in which Alejandro had an important role.
Onetime ambassador to China, Julio Mario was as famous for his business acumen as for his jet-setting; he counted writers, artists and politicians from across Europe and the Americas as friends. His offspring have continued the tradition, appearing in society pages as much for their philanthropy as for their high-profile romances.
Alejandro, a graduate of Harvard University, lives in New York. Among the other surviving Santo Domingos are his brother Andres; their mother, Beatrice Davila; and the patriarch’s grandchildren from his first marriage, Tatiana and Julio.
Career
His work centers on managing the Santo Domingo Group, his family’s conglomerate. He is also the managing director of Quadrant Capital Advisors, member of the AB InBev finance committee, chairman of Bavaria Brewery, director of the Colombian network Caracol Televisión and newspaper El Espectador, chair of the Wildlife Conservation Society, and board member of the Metropolitan Museum of Art,[5] DKMS, WNET, Mount Sinai Health System, the British Museum, and the Barefoot Foundation.
In 2023, Domingo and some of his family were investors in a group led by Josh Harris that purchased the Washington Commanders, an American football team belonging to the National Football League (NFL), for $6.05 billion. The deal was the highest price ever paid for a sports team
Personal life
Santo Domingo holds American, Colombian, and Spanish nationality. He lives in Southampton, New York. During the years he has been seen with several famous socialite girlfriends, which have included heiress Amanda Hearst, editor Karen Larrain and models Eugenia Silva and Julie Henderson. In July 2015, he announced an engagement to Lady Charlotte Anne Wellesley, daughter of Charles Wellesley, 9th Duke of Wellington and Princess Antonia of Prussia, great-great-granddaughter of the late German emperor Wilhelm II. They were married in Íllora, Spain, on 28 May 2016. They have two children, born in 2017 and 2019.
He is a director of Colombia’s Endeavor, an international non-profit development organization that aims to find and support high-impact entrepreneurs in emerging markets and is member of the Latin America Conservation Council of The Nature Conservancy
Milestones
- 1933 Grandfather Mario buys the Barranquilla & Bolivar brewery.
- 1963 After brother’s death, Julio Mario takes over family business.
- 1966 Sells family’s Aguila brewery to Bavaria in return for stock.
- 1996 Santo Domingo buys rival Postobon’s Leona brewery.
- 2004 Avianca airline is sold for $65 million.
- 2011 Father Julio Mario Santo Domingo dies in New York.
- 2012 Santo Domingo family buys shares of Chile’s Corpbanca.
- 2016 SABMiller completes its merger with AB InBev.
