Susanne Klatten is a German billionaire businesswoman and the richest woman in Germany. She is best known for her stake in the automotive giant BMW.
Wiki/Biography
Klatten also known as Susanne Klatten was born in Bad Homburg, Germany on Saturday, April 28, 1962 (59 years old in 2021). Her star sign is Taurus. After completing her studies, Susanne studied at the University of Buckingham in the United Kingdom, where she obtained a Bachelor of Business Administration. After completing her degree, Susanne joined IMD Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland, to pursue a Master of Business Administration.
appearance
Height (approximate): 5′ 4″
Hair color: Blonde
Eye color: Grey
family
Parents and siblings
Susanna’s father was Herbert Werner Quandt, a German industrialist. Her mother was Johanna Maria Quandt, a businesswoman. Susanna also had a younger brother, Stefan Quandt.
Herbert Werner Quandt and Johanna Quandt
Susanne Klatten with her mother and her brother Stefan Quandt
Husband and children
Susanne met Jan Klatten while she was an intern at BMW Regensburg. They married in 1990 and separated in 2018 for unknown reasons. They have three children.
Susanne Klatten and her husband Jan Klatten
Profession
After completing her bachelor’s degree, Susanna started working for the advertising agency Young & Rubicam in Frankfurt. After that, she started working for Dresdner Bank in London. After her father’s death in 1982, Susanna acquired 50.1% of the shares of pharmaceutical and chemical manufacturer Altana. She was a member of the company’s supervisory board and played an important role in transforming the company into a world-class company, helping them to gain a place in the list of the top 30 companies of the German DAX. In 2006, Susanna sold Altana’s pharmaceutical business to Swiss pharmaceutical company Nycomed for 4.5 billion euros, which was distributed to shareholders as dividends. Susanna continued to be a major shareholder and purchased almost all of Altana’s shares in 2009. Altana and SKion are two companies that Susanna fully owns and operates, and she also holds a 46% stake in Landa Digital Printing. In March 2009, German graphite manufacturer SGL Carbon revealed that Susanna could increase her stake to nearly a quarter of the existing shares. After her mother’s death in 2015, Susanna’s stake in BMW became 19.2%, and she was appointed to the Supervisory Board together with her brother Stephan Quandt.
Susanne Klatten attended the press conference
dispute
In 2007, Susanna was embroiled in huge controversy when she had an affair with a Swiss playboy/con man. His name was Helg Sgarbi, and he tried to threaten Susanna by saying that he would leak photos of their affair if she didn’t pay him €49 million (£43 million). Despite all the humiliation, Klatten filed a lawsuit against Sgarbi and was arrested by officials at a motorway service station in Germany. Sgarbi had successfully carried out his plan to blackmail Klatten by meeting her at a Holiday Inn in Munich, a meeting that was recorded by Sgarbi or his associates. Klatten later admitted that she gave Sgarbi €7 million after he made up a story that he needed the money to help the family of an injured girl.
Helg Sgarbi appears in court during the trial
address
Günther-Quandt-Haus, Seedammweg 55, D-61352 Bad Homburg vd Höhe, Federal Republic of Germany
net worth
According to Forbes, Susanna Klatten has a net worth of $30.1 billion (as of 2021), ranking her 53rd on the list of the world’s richest people.
Facts/Trivia
- When Susannah met Jane Klatten, she used the pseudonym Susannah Conder to avoid revealing her true identity. She did this to ensure that Jane was serious about their relationship; however, Klatten denied the story.
- Susanne Klatten is an active supporter of the center-right Christian Democratic Union party and she often donates generously to support the party.
- Klatten is the founder of UnternehmerTUM, the center for innovation and entrepreneurial education at the Technical University of Munich.
- In 2018, Susanne Klatten had to pledge more than 1.12 million shares to repay the loan she took out to invest in The Winx Riverside, a luxury high-rise office building in Frankfurt. In an interview with Manager Magazine, she said:
Our inherited wealth is a misunderstood burden, and people underestimate the negative impact of controlling billions of dollars.”
Winx Tower by the river
- Susanne Klatten is the founder of the Nantesbuch Foundation, which was originally established to provide people with a place away from the hustle and bustle of the city. The new foundation allows people to get closer to nature, appreciate art works from different well-known artists, and stroll in the open fields and gardens of the estate.
- Johanna Maria Quandt was the third wife of Herbert (her father), who had four children from previous wives. Before his death, Herbert made sure that all of his business was divided equally among everyone to avoid any future family disputes.
- In 2007, Susanne Klatten was awarded the Bavarian Order of Merit (Bayerischer Verdienstorden).
- In 2008, German public broadcaster ARD released a documentary, The Silent Quandts, about the Quandt family’s role during World War II. The documentary covered the Quandt family’s relationship with the Nazis and their past, which included slave labor in the family factory. Within five days of the documentary’s release, four members of the Quandt family came forward on behalf of the entire Quandt family and offered to fund a team to study the family’s activities during Hitler’s dictatorship. Bonn historian Joachim Soltysek conducted the study and published a 1,200-page study in 2011, concluding that the Quandt family was inextricably linked to Nazi misdeeds.
Categories: Biography
Source: HIS Education