Meet Hélder Bataglia, the Portuguese-Angolan tycoon who built Escom and opened China's door to Angola
Billionaires Africa | 18.05.2026 19:00
Hélder Bataglia dos Santos has spent five decades operating at the seam between Lisbon, Luanda and the world's biggest economies. The Portuguese-Angolan businessman, founder and president of the Escom Group, built one of the most influential private investment platforms operating out of Angola in the post-civil-war era, parlaying a banking-backed mandate from the Espírito Santo Group into stakes across mining, oil and gas, real estate, infrastructure, energy, aviation and fishing in at least five African countries. He has also spent the past decade fielding investigations on three continents, only some of which have ended in his favor.
