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Albertino de Figueiredo: The World's Largest Stamp Trader



What made Albertino de Figueiredo the main world figure of the stamp business was the fact of buying them expensive. "To pay them justly," he corrects immediately. Well, I often offer stamps three or four times what most philatelic houses in any country would offer. This is how Afinsa, an exclusive agent in 80 countries, holds all sales from the United States of America to Europe and, by way of example, accounts for 70 percent of Portuguese sales to the international philatelic market.

"I have a rule," says Albertino de Figueiredo, "which has become Afinsa's business culture: paying for a stamp about half the price because I think I'll be able to sell it." Is 100 percent a reasonable profit margin? Maybe it is - in 2001 Afinsa profited 54.74 million euros which, after paying taxes, gave 35.59 million net (just over seven million contos). "Yes," maintains the owner of Afinsa with detachment before these accounts, "we do not die of hunger."

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Before telling a little about the life of this Portuguese who was born 71 years ago in the village of Oliveirinha, in the municipality of Carregal do Sal (district of Viseu), let us try for a moment to realize what Afinsa is, this company that arose in 1980 in Madrid to revolutionize the philatelic business from all over the world. Founded by four partners, it quickly became only two: Albertino de Figueiredo and Juan Antonio Cano, who was only 19 years old. As he was exactly the salesman, his age was being added to customers and suppliers in more years than he actually had. It was as if the 30 years were a kind of reliability threshold in the exclusive business world of philately, numismatics, and - as the years went by and the progression of Afinsa - of antiques and works of art (from 1985 onwards) diamonds and other precious stones (1990), naturist products, books and wines (1995), Internet ... and even telecommunications, since Afinsa acquired a mobile phone operator five years ago in Shanghai, the Republic Popular of China.

As a business success Afinsa is, therefore, the best you can find. Business in five continents, stores in New York, Lausanne, Frankfurt, Shanghai, among many other cities: in Portugal there are three (Lisbon, Porto, Leiria) in Spain 55. It has the worldwide leadership in stamp sales - the philatelic multinational which holds the second place is the North American GMAI, listed on the Nasdaq, sells much less than half and 42 percent of its capital belongs to Afinsa. The group and Fundación Albertino de Figueiredo also publish seven journals of the specialty: four for information and training of their own employees - "Philos", "Afinsa Informa", "La Fundación Informa" and "De Rosa News" - two of which are offered to employees and sold to the public - "Chronicle Philatelic" and "Crónica Numismatica" - and a well-known art magazine - "Galeria Antiquária".

How did you build all this? "What I did with Afinsa was to prove to everyone that, besides a great fun, buying and collecting stamps is always, and I stress the 'always', a beautiful investment," argues Albertino de Figueiredo. According to him, this is obtained by paying well to those who have stamps to sell, that is, breaking with the usual policy of the oldest houses. And he explains: "What was customary - and still is in most cases - was the stores trying to fool people who needed to sell the stamps they collected or inherited. If one thing was worth a hundred, they offered 'ten', or 'five,' or 'three' - this was not just in Spain and Portugal, it was all over the world. That is, they instilled in collectors and the public the idea that investing in stamps was a bad deal. I understood that this policy was bad. And I was not wrong. "

Albertino and his partners launched Afinsa in 1980 with the philatelic panorama more or less stagnant everywhere. The companies founded in the nineteenth century have since maintained their (small) size. The purchases and sales were made in opaque circuits, often closed, distant and elitist, without any publicity, paying little and badly. Therefore, the first Afinsa payments that were known had the effect of a bomb: Albertino either bought, or did not buy; but if he bought, he would pay - without haggling - far above what people expected. "When you began to know what you paid for Afinsa," he says, "the other merchants stopped buying, first; and then stopped selling. Most of them are my employees now, or they sold me their companies. "The triumph in the field of conquest of stocks is already clear: "The collector who sells to Afinsa always earns a lot of money. Be satisfied. " Very well. It remains to be seen how he won the next challenge, to make a profit. Who buys expensive, has to sell expensive, right? It seems that no: first, "does not 'have to sell expensive, it is enough to be paid properly," argues Albertino de Figueiredo; second, "can" sell expensive, as long as you know how to do. As long as it raises the attention on what it has to sell, not only to a restricted group of buyers but, literally, to the world. Provided you do it with class, with an irreproachable technical setting and - keyword - with luxury.

Lux. In the places where he promoted the sales, in the organization of the auctions, in the elaboration of the catalogs. Luxury: With this policy in 1985, Afinsa already led the Spanish stamp market. And in 1988, he celebrated his seventh birthday at the Ritz in Madrid, taking all the halls of the hotel to the thousand collectors and VIPs he had invited. "Since 1985 we have done a lot of auctions, strong auctions, auctions that are getting stronger," says Albertino de Figueiredo. The stamps could be paid "properly", as he says, by Afinsa, that is, expensive; but nobody promoted her sale like her.

In 1994, when they were already struggling for world market leadership, they held an auction that stood for history: the Portuguese collection of Ângelo Lima, the Brazilian collector who had a pair of 100 reis of D. Maria II new, the first stamps of Portugal, printed in 1853 in Lisbon by a machine purchased in London second hand, which stamped them by a manually moved lever, pum-pum-pum, in sheets of 24 where they followed irregularly, in slightly rows misaligned. Well, the Ângelo Lima collection was reproduced in a catalog of an impressive luxury, especially for what was usual to date. The printing of 3000 copies to send to the best collectors in the world at that time cost more than 20 million pesetas: today, these catalogs are themselves auctioned, reaching high prices. The auction of the collection was held at the Hotel Palace in Madrid, in front of the Prado Museum, under enormous expectation. Afinsa had bought the collection for a million dollars - sold it for 2.6 million. A success.

It was the year 1931 when Albertino de Figueiredo was born in Oliveirinha. No, it was not in a poor and rural family, far from it: his father, José de Figueiredo, had founded José de Figueiredo & Filhos, Lda, a passenger transport company for career vans that had huge workshops and which, over the years, has been expanding into the sale of fuels and the representation of brands of cars and trucks. Father believed in work. In his and his children, who barely entered adolescence began to have tasks in the company. He was a hard-working man, and his children could never boast of large allowances. He had one party a year-it was a good party, with guests from the outside and everything-but it was worth everyone's birthdays. It was always on 1 January, a fortune for little Albertino, who, for years on the following day, was toasted with gifts.On January 1, 1939, on the eve of his eighth birthday, one of his father's guests, Mr. Porfírio, owner of a store in Viseu in Praça D. Duarte - a very curious store selling hats, musical instruments and umbrellas, he offered him a series of stamps commemorating the centenary of the death of St. Anthony of Lisbon, published in the year in which he was born, in 1931. "Albertino," said Porfirio, "keeps them, make them a collection ". And he did. He was asking his father for some money, 5 pennies here, 25 pennies there, buying postage stamps at his face value, and at a stationery shop in Viseu, some albums and a few more expensive collections. Later he went to study in Coimbra and Lisbon, living in family houses that housed students, continuing the collection at the same leisurely pace. It was only when Oliveirinha came back and, at the age of twenty-one, that he took on responsibilities in the company and began to earn an order, that he ventured into some daring stamps purchases.

The years passed and, in August of 1960, knew the one that would be its first woman, Natividad, a Spanish of Madrid. One day, Albertino left Carregal do Sal in the direction of Oporto, and the next day, to participate in a meeting with Shell, whose fuel was represented at several filling stations. The car, however, before it even started to climb the Serra do Bussaco, broke down - and it was not a breakdown that was fixed overnight. He had no choice but to catch the Beira Alta convoy to Pampilhosa in Mortágua, and then, in Coimbra, to take the Rocket to Porto.

He did so. At the station in Coimbra B, in the waiting room, she realized that a strange and beautiful girl who was also going to Porto was being pestered, "challenged" as he says, by an inconvenient individual. And he, all gallant, did not hesitate and advanced to both, offering the lady his services and asking permission to carry the suitcase to the train that was arriving. She thanked him, relieved; and the other, aggrieved, turned away. They traveled together and, on arrival in Porto, Albertino arranged to help Natividad find a hotel. For some reason they were all full-and Albertino had occasion to be kind a second time on the same day: he offered her the room in the hotel where he had made a reservation, and for himself he took a vacancy in a modest pension nearby. The next day they had lunch together after Albertino's meeting at Shell. In the early afternoon Natividad followed by train to Vigo.Eight months later they were married. They saw each other only three more times until they met in the church. In November, when Albertino went to Madrid to commit himself; in the New Year, when Natividad came with her mother to spend a few days in Viseu; and in the Carnival, when the Portuguese returned to Madrid to combine the marriage. On April 10 a wedding of two hundred guests was held in Madrid, more than half of them from Portugal.

With such a fleeting date, the marriage was not happy. "When we discovered that we were incompatible, the children were already born," recalls Albertino. However, they remained married for 26 years, only having divorced when the three children, a girl and two boys, finished the courses and left the house. In 1988 Albertino married for the second time with Consuelo, also Spanish, that gave him another son. Finally, five years ago, she married for the third time with an Italian woman who lived and lives in Milan, a lady of factories and big business in the area of ​​metallurgy, blond and showy, named Silvana. They do not come more than every 15 days and, according to Albertino de Figueiredo, they do "very well, very well, very well". In fact, today everyone gets along very well, the three women with each other, all the children, the grandson Gonzalo (three years old) and the grandfather. The consoles gather us all without exception.

But back to Viseu in 1961 where Albertino and Natividad went to live after the honeymoon. José de Figueiredo & Filhos, Lda prospered in the road business, having expanded to the sale of office supplies, typewriters and the first to calculate. Albertino was responsible for the commercial part, had money, lived very well, frequented the Club, was, in his words, "a bourgeois." It was then that something very sad happened: her first daughter, Maria Dolores, Lolita, contracted polio at seven months, during her first beach vacation in southern Spain in Benicassim in the summer of 1962. When she went to the vaccine the doctor, suspicious, has not given it to him. In January of 1963 the disease was declared, having been paralytic from the waist down. This did not stop her from years later to make a remarkable career in the field of clinical psychology and today, according to her father, "be of all the brothers who work the most." But at the time his state of health required specialized medical care - and in Viseu it was very difficult to give them. Her mother, Natividad, got used to spending three months in Madrid, three months in Portugal, but it was not life to extend indefinitely, especially since the child entered school.

In 1965 Albertino decides to move to Madrid. And in July, he saw in a newspaper an advertisement that a factory on the outskirts of Madrid was looking for an "industrial expert". Answered. It was the Chrysler-Simca factory in Villa Verde; told him he could start work in September. They gave him the quality control of the cars produced, a position that only took six months, because he soon proposed to the administration some investments in the production line: to buy assembly machines worth 36 million pesetas (today about six / seven million euros) to increase production which, at that time, amounted to 18 cars per day. The managers decided to bet on him; and after the machines arrived, production jumped to 100 vehicles / day in one month. He was immediately appointed head of production and, in 1969, he became the factory manager.

The 70's found it well placed in the Spanish capital. In Portugal, his father became tired of business and sold the company. In 1972 the mother died and, in 1974, the father. The inheritance was divided by the four brothers and, according to him, "was 'pasta'!". He sold the part that belonged to his brothers and, in that year of 1975, when Vasco Gonçalves ruled as Prime Minister in Portugal, he had no way of taking the money out of the country. I did not want to invest in Portugal because I lived in Spain, nor could I put it in the bank because inflation and currency devaluation diminished with each passing day.In Madrid, the owner of the store where he bought stamps to continue his collection called him from time to time: "Come here and I have very beautiful things to show you." He went and sometimes bought. There was a time when a letter, being pretty, cost four times its pay (and as director of the car factory, it did not do any harm!). Conversation pulls conversation, Albertino said: "Hombre, in Portugal could pay you. Not here". The other, stalking the business opportunity, said to him: "Go then to Portugal, offer your money to those who have stamps to sell, bring them and I buy them."

Albertino de Figueiredo did not answer soon. He spoke first to Mr. Porfirio de Viseu-not his father, who had offered him the series of Saint Anthony, who had died, but the son-to advise himself. And he said yes. He did more: he sold his own collection - "Seeing it cheap," I told him, "because I need money to buy the house next to mine" - and ran the country to buy stamps from other collectors as far as it went the inheritance money. Many people sold, and sold cheap, because the PREC was time of great political uncertainty and many people despaired to see the goods to depreciate.

In the months when Albertino de Figueiredo was left without the money he had inherited, and with stamps he did not know for sure how much he could sell, he suffered severe anguish and spent a sleepless night. When he handed the stamps he had collected to the merchant from Madrid, he gave them a circumspect assessment, warned that he could not pay too much for them and gave him four checks - one to cash in immediately and three to raise over three months. After that time, having more than twice as much money as he had inherited from his father, Albertino realized something decisive for the rest of his life: "Seals give a lot of money, they are a fantastic deal."

He started by changing his life by buying a better house. It was not yet the apartment he has today in Calle Ortega y Gassett, in the chic zone of Madrid, where the butler receives visitors in a hall where, to discard, there is a beautiful marble torso, Roman piece of the second century, and a board painted in oil for a Catalan church in 1510, representing the "Kiss before the Golden Gate". The room, this one, is dominated by Vieira da Silva's "La vieille Lisbonne", next to "Les Marionnettes" by her husband Arpad Szènes. There is also a Mompó more figurative than usual in this Spanish painter and, discreetly, in a simple brown frame, sketches drawn by Picasso in 1905 for the painting "Les Saltimbanques et les Arlequines", from his pink period. Anyway, things were not like this in 1975. "But it was the beginning of a fortune."

Afinsa only entered Portugal in 1987. And it did it for Porto. Albertino de Figueiredo put some important national stamps in his suitcase, settled for a few days at the Meridien Hotel on Avenida da Boavista, and went to ask for advice from Armando Vieira, perhaps the most illustrious person in the Portuguese philatelic world. It acquired three floors in Rua Ricardo Jorge, next to the Church of the Trinity, to open the first store of the group in Portugal. Then he advanced to Lisbon, to Rua 1º de Dezembro, to Rossio, a space now replaced by the facilities at Rua de Santa Justa. In the meantime, he had brought valuable Portuguese stamps that he had acquired over the years and sold them to national collectors. "I wanted to" - let us take for granted the malice with which Albertino de Figueiredo pronounces this phrase "to return what was of Portugal to the Portuguese." And finishes: "Having profit, of course". You had a profit and one more extra benefit: you can get the most valuable piece from your private collection. In 1996, it was for the Oporto store to have in the storefront the catalog of the auction of Senhora Perpiñá that the attention of a gentleman from Vila Real,

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José Gonçalves, was called. When he saw the bidding base for certain pieces, he remembered a sealed paper that had been lying for years in a drawer of his father's secretary. On his return to Vila Real he took the paper and one day he came to Lisbon and went to an auction house to know if they would give him something. The man who answered him did the usual thing in these cases: he said that he might be worth something, he did not know, "it is so difficult to find whoever wants to buy it". He entered and left the offices and finally, after very hesitant, there he said he could find a client who paid three thousand contos for that.

José Gonçalves, who saw other prices in the showcase catalog, did not want to do business without going to Afinsa in Oporto. Pedro Figueiredo, Albertino's nephew, answered him, and he immediately realized what it was: a court document of 1853, concerning a certain tax, in which eleven seals D. Maria II of 100 réis and one of 50 réis played the role of payment to the State. It was a single piece, impeccable, marked with the stamp 52 of the Correios do Porto, unknown for 150 years. Pedro Figueiredo took a deep breath and then complied with Afinsa's commercial policy: "Mr. Gonçalves, I do not have the autonomy to buy you these stamps, "I told him. "But they should be worth around 25 thousand contos. If I get permission to buy them, do you want to sell them? "

José Gonçalves, before this offer more than eight times superior to the previous one, answered that yes, that sold. The piece was photocopied and faxed to Madrid. Later, Pedro arrived to speak with his uncle on the telephone: "So I'll give you 25,000 contos?" He asked. Albertino de Figueiredo had the answer prepared from the moment he saw the fax: "No," he ordered. "It's not enough: give him another six thousand."