Almerindo Portfolio | |
---|---|
Born | 23 May 1878
Schiavi di Abruzzo, Italy |
Died | 23 January 1966
Gabriels, New York, USA |
Nationality | Italian American |
Occupation(s) | Businessman, New York City Treasurer |
Children | 2 daughters |
Almerindo Portfolio (23 May 1878 – 23 January 1966) was an Italian-born American banker and financier. He was treasurer of New York City under Mayor Fiorello La Guardia. [1] He was an immigrant from Schiavi di Abruzzo, Italy in 1888. [2] In 1908 he legally changed his name from Almerindo Porfilio. [3]
Portfolio rose from a $2-a-week messenger to the presidency of the Bank of Sicily in New York and the head of a cloak & suit company, that in 1924 he gifted to six employees. [4] He also worked as a newspaper publisher, commodity trader, and investment banker.
Between 1917 and 1919 he paid 300,000 Lira ($1.5 million in 2006 US dollars [5]) to install the first electric service in his home town of Schiavi di Abruzzo, Italy. He later gave 50,000 Lira ($255,000 in 2006 US dollars [6]) for the town's water utilities. [7]
In 1940 Portfolio was a delegate to the Republican National Convention. [8] In 1945 he was a member of a joint committee of influential Italian Americans promoting Allied status for Italy in World War II. [9]
Portfolio died on January 25, 1966, at the age of 88, in Gabriels, in upstate New York, at a tuberculosis cure facility. [1]
Portfolio’s brother in law and biographer was diplomat Paolo Alberto Rossi.