Civita Family

Grupo Abril owns a holding, Abril Par which controls the group’s businesses, which encompass today the entire chain of production, distribution and sales of magazines: publishing, impression, distribution, logistics, sales/subscriptions, product licensing, communication agency. Their main publication is Veja, weekly magazine of larger circulation in Brazil. The group’s companies are owned by the Civita family – brothers Giancarlos Francesco Civita, Victor Civita Neto, and Roberta Anamaria Civita, who own 70% of the capital. The other 30% are owned, since 2006, by the South-African group Naspers.

Founded by Victor Civita, Italian-American born naturalized Brazilian, Grupo Abril used to publish a larger number of magazines and, under Roberto Civita’s, Victor Civita’s son, direction, they developed businesses in other sectors, mainly cable TV and Education. All these businesses however had to be sold to other groups in an attempt to deal with the groups financial problems. The group still maintains the Fundação Victor Civita, focused on education.

Since Roberto Civita’s death in 2013, the holding’s Administration Council is formed by members of the Civita family and Naspers, to whom Abril Mídia’s president submits. Fundação Victor Civita, on the other hand, has a Curating Council formed by members of the Civita family and other independent members, besides and executive director’s board which coordinates their activities.

Giancarlo Civita is the president of both the Administration Council and Abril Mídia, besides being a member of Fundação Victor Civita Council; he graduated in Social Communication at ESPM and has an MBA degree from Harvard’s Business School. He had different positions in the group: media trainee at Gráfica Abril, programming director at TVA, general director at MTV, vice-president at Unidade Temática, vice president of Divisão Entretenimento and vice-president of Unidade Jovem, executive vice president and executive president of Grupo Abril.

Victor Civita Neto is a member of the Administration Council, president of Editora Abril’s Editorial Board and president of Fundação Victor Civita. He is a political scientist graduated from Columbia University (US). He has been the programming and production director at MTV and TVA, vice president of Unidade Jovem at Editora Abril and vice president of digital initiatives at Grupo Abril.

Roberta Anamaria Civita is vice president at the Fundação Victor Civita, graduated in Psychology at Brown University (US).

In 2014 the three siblings entered Forbes Brazilian billionaires list, with an estimated wealth of 1.5 billion each. In December, 2015, the siblings invested R$450 million to help reduce Grupo Abril’s debts.