He was the wealthiest man in Portugal, gaining his fortune through insurance, banking, iron ore mining and cement industries, which were nationalized after the Carnation Revolution of 1974.
Maria Cristina was an heir to the Grupo CUF, a company that was a conglomerate with interests in chemical, textiles, banking, insurances, shipbuilding and repairing, shipping and tobacco industries.
He bequeathed 500 million euros to establish the Champalimaud Foundation in order to support biomedicine.
In the early 1960s, he bought the Banco Pinto & Sotto Mayor (BPSM) and the insurance companies Confiança, Mundial and Continental Resseguros.
Without his fortune, he restarted building his wealth, first establishing a cement company in Brazil, and later by also operating commercial farms.