Brewers among the country’s richest people
Money isn’t everything, but it’s a long way ahead of what comes next. Like Olympic medal rankings, rich lists are somewhat silly. Still, they make for compelling study. On 8 October 2013, the ManagerMagazin published its annual rich list of the 500 wealthiest Germans. As expected, the two families behind Germany’s discount retail chain Aldi top the list at EUR 17.6 billion and EUR 16 billion each.
ManagerMagazin’s estimates may seem conservative as on the Forbes Rich List, one of Aldi’s owners, Karl Albrecht, aged 93, is worth EUR 19.3 billion and ranks 18th among the world’s billionaires.
However, once you are in this sort of league, what’s a billion here or there – unless you are Prince Alwaleed bin Talal from Saudi Arabia, who sued Forbes magazine in June this year over claims that Forbes underestimated his wealth by USD 9.6 billion when it calculated his net worth at USD 20 billion, placing him 26th on the 2013 list of billionaires instead of in the Top 10 where he felt he belonged.
Back in Germany, net worths are much more modest. Nevertheless, brewers are not doing too badly here. Alexandra Schörghuber, the owner of Schörghuber Group (and the Paulaner brewery) ranked 31st. Her personal wealth is estimated at EUR 3.1 billion up from EUR 2.6 billion in 2012.
The Simon family (Bitburger) at EUR 1.3 billion, ranked 96th, while the other family behind Bitburger, the Niewodniczanski family, came in at rank 253 (EUR 450 million).
Another woman, whose wealth (EUR 700 million) is mainly based on beer, is Susanne Veltins, the owner of the Veltins Brewery, ranking 163rd.
The families Cramer (Warsteiner Brewery) and Schadeberg (Krombacher Brewery) rank 188th and 212th respectively. Their net worth is estimated at EUR 600 million and EUR 550 million.
As the tabloid newspaper BILD pointed out, the richest 500 Germans sit on a combined wealth of EUR 528 billion. For that money one could buy 21 million mid-range cars. What kind of comparison is that, I ask?
