Amalia Lacroze | de Fortabat | Argentine heiress, 90

Amalia Lacroze de Fortabat, 90, who built a billion-dollar fortune with her late husband's Argentine cement companies and became a leading art collector, died Saturday in her luxury apartment in Buenos Aires.

Ms. Fortabat became one of Argentina's wealthiest women at age 54, when her second husband, Alfredo Fortabat, 27 years her senior, died in 1976.

At the time, Argentina had just fallen under a dictatorship with close ties to the country's wealthy business elites, and the Loma Negra cement businesses flourished through government contracts with the military junta.

She also inherited huge cattle ranches and properties in the United States, including a Park Avenue apartment.

Ms. Fortabat traveled often as she expanded her modern-art collection, which includes an Andy Warhol portrait of her, painted in the same style as his famous Marilyn Monroe series.

In 2001, she opened the Museo Fortabat in Buenos Aires' Puerto Madero district, a modern building where many modern master works are now on public display.

Ms. Fortabat sold Loma Negra to Brazil's Camargo Correa group in 2005 for about $1 billion, but remained involved in the Fortabat Foundation, a charitable organization.

- AP