MESSAGE
| DATE | 2009-01-06 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [NYLXS - HANGOUT] Billionaire Suicides on the rise
|
Troubled billionaire Merckle takes own life
Published: 6 Jan 09 19:29 CET Online:
http://www.thelocal.de/national/20090106-16575.html
German billionaire Adolf Merckle, who was in talks with banks to save
his troubled industrial empire, has committed suicide by stepping in
front of a train.
* Commerzbank mulls state-backed bond issue - Money (6 Jan 09) *
2008 marks worst year for new car sales since reunification - * Money
(6 Jan 09) * Deutsche Bahn awards Bombardier €1.5-billion deal -
Money (5 Jan * 09)
"He ended his life," his son Tobias Merckle told news agency DPA.
The daily Die Welt reported earlier that Merckle had been killed by a
train near his home outside of Ulm on Monday and that police had ruled
out foul play.
The 74-year-old Merckle was one of the richest men in Germany and
his family controlled a massive pharmaceuticals empire. According to
Forbes magazine, he had a total net worth last March of $9.2 billion
(€6.9 billion).
His finances recently were troubled, however, and he reportedly only
managed to get a last-minute loan of €400 million to keep things
afloat temporarily.
"The plight of his firms caused by the financial crisis, the uncertainties
of recent weeks as well as the powerlessness of not being able to do
anything, broke this passionate family businessman," the Merckle family
said in a statement.
Merckle's VEM holding company controls the pharmaceutical group
Ratiopharm, building materials giant HeidelbergCement and one of Europe's
biggest wholesale drug distributors, Phoenix.
His interests also included the manufacturing of electric motors,
machine tools and snow equipment.
But he made a huge loss in a bet on shares in VW, Europe's biggest
carmaker, which swung violently up and down in late 2008. Just when
he should have been enjoying the quiet life and arranging a seamless
succession to his four sons, the debacle meant he had to go cap-in-hand
to banks to persuade them to bail him and his empire out.
These talks appeared to be nearing a satisfactory conclusion, with a
spokeswoman for VEM saying over the Christmas period that Merckle and
around 30 creditor banks were near to a deal.
Born in Dresden in eastern Germany in 1934, he inherited in his mid-30s
a pharma company from his father with just 80 employees. Step by step,
Merckle built this up into a powerhouse with 100,000 workers on the
payroll and annual sales of around €35 billion, lording over it in
19th-century style where unions were not made to feel welcome.
He embodied the type of shrewd family businessman that form the backbone
of Europe's biggest economy, and in particular that of the rich Swabia
region of Baden-Württemberg.
Merckle was man of unremarkable and granddad-like appearance who enjoyed
mountain holidays in the Andes and Himalayas. He avoided publicity
and lived relatively frugally and unostentatiously in the small town
of Blaubeuren.
"I have already survived quite a lot of stock market crashes," Merckle
said in a rare press interview last month. "But I was not prepared for a
banking and financial crisis on this scale." -- http://www.mrbrklyn.com
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