Julio Lobo y Olavarria (30 October 1898 – 30 January 1983) was a powerful

Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...

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trader and

financier An investor is a person who allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest). Through this allocated capital the investor usually purchases some species of property. Types of in ...

. From the late 1930s to 1960, when he left Cuba to go into

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, Lobo was considered the single most powerful sugar broker in the world. At the time of the success of the

Cuban Revolution The Cuban Revolution () was the military and political movement that overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, who had ruled Cuba from 1952 to 1959. The revolution began after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état, in which Batista overthrew ...

in 1959, Lobo's fortune was estimated at close to

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200 million (US$1.8 billion in 2020). His assets then included 16

sugar mill A sugar cane mill is a factory that processes sugar cane to produce raw sugar or plantation white sugar. Some sugar mills are situated next to a back-end refinery, that turns raw sugar into (refined) white sugar. The term is also used to refer ...

s, over 30,000 acres of land, a bank, an

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, and offices in

Havana Havana (; ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

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, and

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. Following the Cuban revolution of 1959, Lobo was summoned to Havana by Che Guevara. He was informed that all of his sugar mills, other companies, and his houses were being appropriated by the newly formed Communist regime. However, knowing that Lobo was the only person in Cuba who knew how to run the sugar refineries, Guevara offered Lobo a job as the head of the sugar industry in Cuba. If he accepted, Lobo would be granted one sugar mill and one personal residence. Lobo told Guevara he needed to think it over. The next day, Lobo boarded his private plane and left Cuba, never to return. Lobo was born in

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(Venezuela) to a father of

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Jewish descent and a Catholic mother, and grew up in

Havana Havana (; ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...

. As a young man he studied in the

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. He subsequently married into an old Cuban aristocratic family, the Montalvo family. Eventually he inherited his father's trading business and turned it into the world's largest sugar trading firm. A renowned art connoisseur, Lobo also acquired the largest collection of Napoleonic

memorabilia A souvenir (French language, French for 'a remembrance or memory'), memento, keepsake, or token of remembrance is an object a person acquires for the memory, memories the owner associates with it. A souvenir can be any object that can be collecte ...

outside of

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. The collection is housed today in Havana in the former home of Orestes Ferrara, at the

Napoleon Museum (Havana) The Napoleon Museum in Havana, Cuba houses one of the most important collections from the 18th and 19th centuries preserved in the Western hemisphere. The museum is on San Miguel Street, between Ronda and Mazón, on one side of the University of Ha ...

. Many of the books and manuscripts from Lobo's collection were moved to the Biblioteca Nacional de Cuba José Martí. Lobo died in

on January 30, 1983, and is buried at the Almudena Cathedral next to

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's Palacio Real.

References

*John Paul Rathbone, The Sugar King of Havana: the Rise and Fall of Julio Lobo, Cuba's Last Tycoon (2010) *Sulema Rodríguez Roche and Zoia Rivera, “La Biblioteca de Julio Lobo: Una Aproximación a Su Colección Napoleónica,” ''Acimed: Revista Cubana de Los Profesionales de La Información y La Comunicación En Salud'' 17, no. 1 (January 2008): 189–97. 1898 births 1983 deaths 20th-century Cuban businesspeople Cuban people of Jewish descent Businesspeople in the sugar industry Cuban landowners Venezuelan emigrants to Cuba Cuban emigrants to the United States {{cuba-business-bio-stub