receive a millionaire inheritance unexpectedly is something unusual, and even more so when there is no family connection. This is what has happened in Lleida, where a religious congregation has become the beneficiary of a fortune valued at 14 million euros after the death of a local businessman.
Francesc Perera Dalmau, owner of the agricultural machinery company Automotor, died last January without children and decided to leave his entire estate to the Little Sisters of the Poor. A gesture that has surprised both the quantity and the circumstances in which it occurred.
The legacy includes not only the money, but also the company, a company with deep roots in Lleida. His current manager, Daniel Barios, explained to 3cat how everything happened unexpectedly. “He called me to come and act as a manager to help him. With bad luck he got pancreatic cancer, very fast and aggressive, and died in 29 days,” he said. The businessman, in his early 60s, died just a month after the diagnosis.
An unexpected decision without heirs
The decision to leave his millionaire inheritance to the little sisters of the poor came, as Barios explained, because the businessman had a personal bond with the congregation since his childhood, and it was one of the sisters who took care of him when he was just a child. “Not having family or descendants, he wanted to return what the sisters gave him,” he said.
Among the workers at Automotor, where the businessman had been running the business for years, the news was received as a gesture of enormous generosity. Josep Ramon, who has been in the company for 28 years, summed it up like this: “He was a person with a big heart.”
The inheritance also includes control of the company, which is now in the process of being processed. If everything continues its course, the Little Sisters of the Poor will become the new owners.
For the moment, the company will continue with its usual activity, although marked by the figure of its founder. “He was very human, because someone else might not have done that,” concludes Barios, highlighting the impact of his last will.