The Belgian businessman and the richest Belgian Albert Frère is today at age 92 died. The basis of his wealth? That was his motto. “Buy cheap and expensive to sell.”
Albert Frère was a selfmademan who, with his financial holding company groupe Bruxelles Lambert (GBL) was active in strategic sectors such as energy, industry and financial services. He grew to be one of the most powerful entrepreneurs of Belgium and France. In the list of richest people on earth, of the magazine Forbes, placed Fère for years as the richest Belgian. Forbes estimated his ability in 2018 to 5.8 billion dollars.
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As a young businessman, he learned quickly the tricks of the trade. He invested his profits from the family business, a thriving wholesaler in hardware, in the Walloon metal industry. In 1954 he bought his first steel plant. For he himself realized, he was moved to an important position within the sector. the
in the Early eighties, checked Frère nearly the entire staalbekken of Charleroi. At that moment he felt, as one of the few, that there is a crisis in the way it was in the steel industry. He sold his holdings in the Walloon steel industry for 2 billion francs (50 million euros) to the Belgian state. It earned him the reproach that he made his fortune at the expense of the state. A recent biography of The Time-journalist Jean Vanempten fearbet.org adds a rider to that statement strongly.
European empire
Nevertheless, put Frère with the money from the sale of steel companies, his career as a financier further on the rails. Slowly he built a European zakenimperium that invested in numerous sectors, such as industry, energy, banks, luxury goods, media and real estate. The basis of Frères wealth lay in his motto: “buy cheap and expensive to sell”.
in the Late eighties, he went through the Swiss holding company Pargesa, an alliance with the (in 2013 deceased) Canadian Paul Desmarais. That way, he is also strong in international financial circles. The shareholder pact keeps today still stand and was in 2012 extended to 2029.
