Alfred Oetker – Billionaire

The Oetker fortune — of which Alfred Oetker is one of eight billionaire beneficiaries — was built on baking and pudding powder. Now broadly diversified, Dr August Oetker KG — a holding company whose subsidiaries employ some 26,000 people and generate around $15 billion in annual revenue — traces its roots to 1891, when August Oetker, a pharmacist, started selling non-perishable baking powder. After World War II, his grandson Rudolf August Oetker, a former Nazi SS officer, quickly rose to prominence as the driving force behind one of Germany’s most recognizable brands. In 1950, according to the family history “Die Oetkers,” Oetker produced more than 750 million packages of baking and pudding powder. Personifying Germany’s Wirtschaftswunder, or economic miracle, he developed additional food products and expanded into beverages, container shipping, financial services and luxury hotels. He died in 2007, at age 90, leaving eight children from three marriages. The heirs, who along with their families each own 12.5% percent of the conglomerate, have disagreed over the management and future direction of Oetker, however. Split into two camps, the rivalry is between the children from Rudolf August’s first two marriages — August, Christian and Richard Oetker, plus Rosely Schweizer and Bergit Graefin Douglas — and the siblings from the third marriage: Alfred, Carl Ferdinand and Julia Oetker. Alfred was expected to take over as general partner from his oldest half-brother, August, in 2010, but he was blocked by the older siblings, who instead crowned Richard Oetker. In January 2015, with a proxy fight pending before an arbitration tribunal, the groups agreed to recruit an outside CEO when Richard retires in 2017. Alfred and August will be represented on the advisory board. Alfred studied economics at the University of Passau and Oxford, and speaks six languages. He has two sons with his wife Princess Elvira Grimaldi. The family of Princess Grimaldi is the Sicilian branch of the Grimaldis of Genoa and Monaco.

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