Bial’s book on the Magalu leader exposes Trajano’s family dramas, but only ‘in retail’

Vanity, intrigue, vices, betrayal and even suspicious deaths. It may seem like a soap opera plot, but this is the reality of most family businesses, whether in Brazil or abroad.

An example was the scandal involving Liliane Bettencourt, the richest woman in France and heir to the L’Oréal cosmetics empire, who died in 2017, and her only child, Françoise Bettencourt-Meyers, who declared in court that her mother was “mentally incapable of ” for giving billionaire gifts to a celebrity photographer.

In Brazil, the third-generation cousins ​​of the Schincariol family entered into litigation after two brothers —Adriano and Alexandre, sons of José Nelson— sold control of the brewery to Japanese company Kirin, without reaching an agreement with shareholders José Augusto, Daniela and Gilberto Junior. The latter, sons of Gilberto Schincariol, maintained that José Nelson deceived his brother into becoming a majority in the company. The company today belongs to the Dutch Heineken.

The São Paulo retailer Magazine Luiza, headquartered in Franca, a city of 359,000 inhabitants, 400 kilometers from São Paulo, has not experienced this level of ailments, but it keeps some alcove secrets, as shown in the recently released book by journalist Pedro Bial, “Luiza Helena –Mulher do Brasil” (published by Gente). The book tells the story of Luiza Helena Trajano Inácio Rodrigues, 73 years old, current chairman of the retailer’s board, which has become one of the largest companies in the sector in the country, with almost 1,500 stores, 40,000 employees and more than R$ 55 billion of annual billing.

Bial places the reader in the genealogy of the Trajano family, which originated with Manoel and Inês, parents of eight children — four girls and four boys. Among the girls, Luiza, the only one of the eight children who left no offspring, created Magazine Luiza in 1957. A talented salesperson, she took on her niece, Luiza Helena, her sister Jacira’s only child, as a disciple and natural heir of the best techniques on how to please the customer.

Through Pedro Bial’s lens, the reader enters the Trajanos’ house as a courtesy visit — where conversations are pleasant, although some more intimate stories are revealed “in passerby“. This is how the reader discovers, for example, that Luiza Helena separated from her husband, Erasmo, in the 1980s and lived a new love, to resume their marriage six years later.

She and Erasmo were the parents of Frederico, Ana Luiza and Luciana — of the three, only Ana Luiza did not continue in the company and became a chef, against her mother’s wishes, who wanted to see her in the company. The book indicates that Fred, the firstborn and now president of Magalu, is her favorite.

Luiza Helena was afraid that there would be a clash in the third generation for the company’s command: Fabrício Garcia, son of the businesswoman’s cousin, Wagner, inherited his father’s shares, when he died, after facing problems with alcoholism. Luiza Helena and Wagner had the same amount of shares in the retailer, and Fabrício could claim to become president. But, to the matriarch’s relief, he agreed to leave the command to cousin Fred and became vice president of operations for Magalu.

Luiza Helena herself had already faced, in 1991, when she took control of Magazine Luiza, a family conflict. The founder, Pelegrino José Donato, husband of Aunt Luiza and counselor of the company, did not accept his niece in charge, due to machismo. He went against most of his ideas for employee benefits policies, such as scholarships, easy credit, and day care. He died in late 2018, aged 94.

But Luiza Trajano Rodrigues is alive, at 95, and has suffered from dementia for some time. The niece Luiza Helena supports the once incredible saleswoman, who gave her the push to create an empire. But today the founder seems oblivious to everything and still thinks she is 43 years old. The stories of Aunt Luiza, however, a true retail master, are some of the book’s highlights.

The senility of the aunt, the distant relationship with her mother (already deceased), the relationship with her six grandchildren, the sudden death of her husband and personal questions, which brought the protagonist to tears, such as the discovery of structural racism in Brazil — none of that is in-depth, from Luiza Helena’s point of view. The drama is in retail, not wholesale.

It is difficult for the reader to see her as a fallible human being: she is portrayed as a talented, agile, intuitive, generous and concerned businesswoman, which made her considered as a minister by Dilma Rousseff and, more recently, as a possible candidate for the presidency or even vice of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

But it is not known how far the pain reaches her, what she did wrong, what she regrets. No disaffection was heard. In the end, the reader feels as if he has found a very nice and helpful saleswoman, who treats him like one of the family, but when he leaves the store, he realizes that he doesn’t know anything about her.

Even Luiza Helena’s self-proclaimed modesty is discredited in some passages, such as when she says: “My spirit was always that of a ‘startup’. In 1992, I started tearing down walls when nobody did. They said it wasn’t going to work… if you are ahead of your time, you pay a very high price”.

“She has a project from Brazil”

“Luiza Helena –A Mulher do Brasil” is the third biography of Pedro Bial, who wrote “Roberto Marinho” (Zahar publisher, 2004) and directed “Jorge Mautner – O filho do holocaust” (2012 documentary).

“What Luiza Helena and Roberto Marinho have in common is that they are entrepreneurs who have a project for the nation,” Bial told Sheet. “Roberto Marinho, in addition to being driven by profit, by the logic of the capitalist market, had a project for Brazil. Luiza Helena also has a project that goes beyond Magazine. So much so that today she is on the company’s board, she is no longer an executive , which allowed him to spread his wings to act in civil society and promote changes in human, social, economic and political relations in Brazil”, he said.

In December 2021, the British newspaper Financial Times named the businesswoman as one of the 25 most influential women in the world. In September of last year, she appeared in the list of the 100 most influential people of the American magazine Time.

In addition to business performance, much of the recognition is due to its leading role in the defense of public policies, such as the United for the Vaccine groups, to combat Covid-19, and Mulheres do Brasil, for female entrepreneurship.

Since September of last year, the businesswoman has been a member of the Editorial Board of Sheet.

Bial stated that the idea of ​​writing the biography came after an interview made in 2020, for the talk show Conversa com Bial, from Globo.

“She has always been very reluctant to do anything about her life. But we presented a very human proposal, as she likes to direct things, she felt attracted and agreed to do it.”

Luiza Helena – Woman from Brazil

Editor People

2022

320 pages.