German billionaire commits suicide after VW losses

German billionaire Adolf Merckle commits suicide after VW losses

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - In killing himself German billionaire Adolf Merckle (German Billionaires Forbes site) has become the latest casualty of the global financial crisis, his family saying on Tuesday he was broken by the struggle to salvage their business empire.
Merckle, who was the world's 94th-richest person in 2008 according to Forbes magazine, spent his life building a business conglomerate with about 100,000 employees.
The empire was poised to come crashing down after his family made wrong-way bets on skyrocketing Volkswagen shares.
The family has been under pressure to sell some assets or seek bridging loans and has been in talks with banks for weeks.
Market players said Merckle liked to keep a low profile and had seemed like a conservative investor.
Yet he became the most well-known victim of a share market squeeze which briefly made carmaker Volkswagen the world's most valuable company late in October.
Its share price rocketed to just over 1,000 euros from 210 euros in two trading sessions after rival Porsche made a surprise stakeholding announcement that sent short sellers of VW shares running for cover.
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See our other Post on this Blog,
The first half of 2009 will be the time of more global financial trouble, deleveraging, refinancing and more bailout requests.


Volkswagen shares up after Porsche takes majority stake
January 6th, 2009 - 11:48 pm
Stuttgart (Germany), Jan 6 (DPA) Volkswagen (VW) shares rose sharply Tuesday, a day after sports carmaker Porsche announced it had acquired a majority stake in its German rival.VW shares climbed to 287.09 euros ($384) on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, up 12.7 percent from Monday when Porsche disclosed it had increased its stake in Europe’s biggest carmaker to 50.76 percent

Adolf Merckle: Ende eines Patriarchen (7 Februar)
Adolf Merckle liebte es, sein Firmenkonglomerat so intransparent wie möglich zu halten. Mit Ratiopharm, Phoenix und Heidelberg Cement stieg der schwäbische Patriarch in die deutsche Milliardärsriege auf.
Als Anfang November die ersten Gerüchte aufkamen, Adolf Merckle sei in Finanznöten, habe sich gar mit VW-Aktien verspekuliert, war das nicht so recht zu glauben. Ausgerechnet der schwäbische Unternehmer - ein Finanzzocker? Kann nicht sein, das geht gegen seine Natur.
Aber es stellte sich als wahr heraus. Er, der Inbegriff eines Patriarchen mit dem weitverzweigten Firmenimperium, hatte Hunderte Millionen verloren - und damit sein Konglomerat aufs Spiel gesetzt, hat es zum teilweisen Ausverkauf preisgegeben. "Mir ist fremd, etwas aufzugeben", lautete ein viel zitierter Spruch von ihm. Aber genau das musste er als Folge seiner Verluste nun tun: Seinen Arzneimittelhersteller Ratiopharm wird Merckles Holding VEM mit höchster Wahrscheinlichkeit veräußern müssen.