Susanne Klatten
Susanne Klatten was born Susanne Hanna Ursula Quandt on 28 April 1962 in Bad Homburg in Germany. She is the daughter of Herbert Quandt and Johanna Quandt and, as a result, is the richest woman in Germany.
Education
Susanne Klatten gained a degree in business finance and then worked for the advertising agency Young & Rubicam in Frankfurt from 1981 to 1983. She then did a course in marketing and management at the University of Buckingham, followed by an MBA from IMD in Lausanne specialising in advertising. She gained further business experience in London with Dresdner Bank, then with the Munich branch of management consultants McKinsey and with the bank Reuschel & Co. Recognising that her wealth is sometimes a problem, she often worked incognito under the name Susanne Kant. Police prevented her kidnapping in 1978 only at the last minute.
Investments
On her father's death she inherited his 50.1% stake in pharmaceutical and chemicals manufacturer Altana. She sits on Altana's supervisory board and helped transform it into a world-class corporation in the German DAX list of 30 top companies. In 2006 Altana AG sold its pharmaceutical activities to Nycomed for €4.5 billion, leaving only its specialty chemicals business. The €4.5 billion was distributed to shareholders as a dividend. Altana maintained its stock exchange listing and Susanne Klatten remained its majority shareholder.
Her father also left her a 12.50% stake in BMW. She was appointed to the supervisory board of BMW with her brother Stefan Quandt in 1997 .
Personal life
Susanne met Jan Klatten while she was doing an apprenticeship with BMW in Regensburg, where he worked as an engineer. During this time she called herself Kant and did not tell him who she was until they were sure about each other. They married in 1990 in Kitzbühel and live in Munich. They have three children. She also plays golf and skis in Austria. Like the other members of the Quandt family, they live quietly. She has been a member of the University Council of the Technical University of Munich since 2005. In 2007 she was awarded the Bayerischer Verdienstorden, the Bavarian Order of Merit. She is one of the biggest donors to CDU [1], a political party in Germany. In her free time, Klatten is thought to enjoy the company of male prostitutes. While on a date with one of these gigolos, one of their favoured activities is thought to be naked water-skiing.
The blackmail incident
On 31 October 2008, several European newspapers reported an alleged blackmail plot against Susanne Klatten and the subsequent arrest of two men.[1] It is alleged that Klatten was blackmailed in 2007 by Helg Sgarbi, 44, a Swiss-Italian who threatened to release intimate films unless she paid him 14 million euros.[2] Apparently Klatten contacted the German police in response to this threat.[3] It was also reported that Klatten had previously paid 7.5 million euros to Sgarbi after he claimed his life was endangered by the mafia.[2]
The reports state that Sgarbi approached Klatten in 2006 at Hotel Lanserhof, a spa near Innsbruck, Austria, and that the couple had then met in secret at luxury hotels in Monte Carlo, her home-town of Munich and in other European cities.[2][3]
Sgarbi was arrested in January 2008 by the Austrian EKO Cobra police unit and extradited to Germany, where he will face charges of fraud, attempted fraud and attempted extortion.[2] On 9th March 2009 Sgarbi pleaded guilty to the blackmail charges in Munich court. His accomplice, Italian hotel owner Ernano Barretta, 63, who allegedly filmed Sgarbi and Klatten with hidden cameras, is in custody in Italy.[3]
On March 9, 2009, Sgarbi pleaded guilty in court.[4], his counsel stating that the accusations against him were essentially accurate. It was anticipated that by pleading guilty at an early stage, his sentence would be reduced.
The family's past
A programme by the German public broadcaster, ARD, in October 2007 described in detail the role of the Quandt family businesses during the Second World War. As a result four family members announced, on behalf of the entire Quandt family, their intention to fund a research project in which a historian will examine the family's activities during Hitler's dictatorship[5].
See also
References
- ^ Daily Telegraph web site 31 October 2008
- ^ a b c d "Trial to Begin for Man Who Duped Germany's Richest Woman". Spiegel Online. 2009-03-06. Retrieved 2009-03-06.
- ^ a b c Bryant, Miranda (2008-11-03). "The gigolo, the German heiress, and a £6m revenge for her Nazi legacy". The Independent. Retrieved 2009-03-06.
- ^ BBC News report 9 March 2009
- ^ Description of the 2007 ARD programme by Der Spiegel]
