María Amalia Lacroze de Fortabat

María Amalia Lacroze de Fortabat (August 15, 1921 – February 18, 2012) was an Argentine executive and philanthropist.

Life and times María Amalia Sara Lacroze Reyes de Fortabat Pourtal was born in 1921 to Amalia Reyes and Daniel Lacroze, members of prominent Argentine families; a grandfather, Federico Lacroze, developed Buenos Aires first tramway line, in the 1880s. Her mother's family descended from Uruguay's second president, Manuel Oribe. She was raised in Paris and in 1942, having returned to Argentina, married Hernán de Lafuente, with whom she had a daughter, María Inés. The marriage, however, ended in separation in 1943.

Amalia (as she was known) had met Alfredo Fortabat, a divorced industrialist, during a Teatro Colón function, and the two began a relationship. Planning to wed, they were impeded by Argentina's then-conservative nuptial laws, which precluded separated couples from remarrying. The marriage, which ultimately took place in neighboring Uruguay in 1947, became recognized in Argentina following a reform signed into law by President Juan Perón, in 1951. The two enjoyed a close marriage, and Mrs. Fortabat's gregariousness and knowledge of four foreign languages made her a timely traveling companion in the industrialist's frequent business trips abroad; the marriage did suffer from a number of publicized infidelities, however. The death of her husband in 1976 left Mrs. Fortabat as the company's nearly sole owner, President and chairperson.

Loma Negra enhanced its market leadership position in subsequent years by the opening of important new facilities and the acquisition of a chief competitor, Cementos San Martín S.A. That year, Fortabat broke ground on the group's new headquarters in the Catalinas Norte office park, in downtown Buenos Aires.

Mrs. Fortabat's health had declined amid worsening respiratory problems. She died in her Avenida del Libertador home in Buenos Aires on February 18, 2012, at age 90. She was interred in La Recoleta Cemetery.

Political activities After giving her support to the Peronist political movement of President-elect Carlos Saul Menem, Fortabat complained in 1989 that a major failing of Raúl Alfonsín had been his lapse into "cronyism." She cultivated a strong relationship with Menem, who later appointed her as a plenipotentiary ambassador, a privilege later revoked by Néstor Kirchner upon her sale of her 80% stake in Loma Negra to Brazilian conglomerate Camargo Corrêa in 2005.

Art collecting and philanthropy

As a patron of the arts, Mrs. Fortabat amassed an art collection reportedly valued at US$280 million (in 1999). Later, she sold many paintings, such as the Degas pastel Mary Cassatt at the Louvre (circa 1879), auctioned for $16.5 million at Sotheby's, New York, in 2002.

Appointed President of the Fondo Nacional de las Bellas Artes (National Fine Arts Fund) in 1992, As a philanthropist, she established the Fundación Amalia Lacroze de Fortabat (previously named Fundación Alfredo Fortabat y Amalia Lacroze de Fortabat), which has given more than $40 million to numerous charitable organizations throughout Argentina since 1976. Among other causes, she gave many millions to the veterans of Argentina’s war with England over the Falkland Islands and refugees from the war in Kosovo in 1999.

Her granddaughter, Amalia Adriana Amoedo, an Argentine philanthropist, art collector, and visual artist, is the founder of the Fundación Ama Amoedo, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the visual arts in Latin America.