Horácio da Silva Roque (12 April 1944 – 19 May 2010) was a Portuguese financier and businessman, who founded the Banco Internacional do Funchal (BANIF) in 1988.
[1] After having been employed at the Pérola de São Paulo charcuterie, owned by his brother-in-law, and at the Palladium café, two Portuguese coffee farmers proposed to him a partnership in the Munich brewery.
Remaining as a partner in the brewery, the teen hired a teacher to take private lessons in order to continue his studies, and his name was Viriato.
It was enough to pay off debts and return to business, expanding into real estate and buying his first luxury restaurant, Farol Velho, on the island of Luanda.
The schools ended up closing, leaving the restaurant, the favorite of MPLA and government generals, with whom he maintained good relations.
[3] Meanwhile, he met Joe Berardo, a Madeiran who had emigrated to South Africa at the age of 19 and who made a fortune in gold mining, among other businesses.
With the help of Joe Berardo and Durval Marques, Horácio Roque financed a network of clinical laboratories that he later sold to a multinational pharmaceutical company.
[3] In the 1980s, the businessman returned to Portugal, and with Joe Berardo saved the Caixa Económica do Funchal from bankruptcy, transforming it into Banif.
[3] One of the last episodes in Africa told in his biography is the visit of João Soares to Angola: "Zedu (José Eduardo dos Santos) invites me to go there to give a message to Savimbi, to ask him to calm down.
He was Honorary Consul of Panama in Portugal, whose President of the Republic awarded him, in 1998, the National Decoration of the Order of Vasco Núñez de Balboa.