Albert Frere Net Worth, Biography, Career and Assets

Albert Frere Net Worth $5 Billion

Mr. Albert Frère was a Belgian high school dropout who converted the profits from his father’s nail company into a fortune worth billions. His multinational mergers and acquisitions helped strengthened the economic integration of Europe, and he lived his life during the peak of his prominence as one of the most respected business persons in Europe.

Frère, who was titled a baron by King Albert II of Belgium in 1994, never let anything get in his way as he bought and sold major stakes in several blue-chip conglomerates. Those conglomerates also ignored national borders in Europe as they acquired other companies or merged with them.

After buying a stake in the Belgian oil firm Petrofina, for example, Mr. Frère later traded it to a French competitor, Total. Often described as the Warren Buffett of Belgium, this business tycoon operated without fanfare from a deluxe apartment in Paris and from Charleroi, a city in Belgium near the town of his birth.

He became, according to Forbes magazine, the richest man in his country and was one of the richest in Europe, with a net worth valued at close to 6 billion dollars. His father, Oscar, was a nail and chain merchant who passed away when Albert was 17.

The business was largely idle during the Second World War, but Albert dropped out of school to help run the factory with his mother, Madeleine. After the war, reconstruction made the nail company profitable for the family, and Frère, recognizing that the Korean dispute would create a demand for steel, took it upon himself to invest in a factory and eventually controlled 50 percent of the country’s production.

He made a windfall in the year 1979 when the Belgian government privatized the industry before prices slumped. After he established Pargesa Holding in Geneva, Switzerland, with Mr. Desmarais, the business partners took over Groupe Bruxelles Lambert at the beginning of 1982.

Frère engineered the 2007 merger of Gaz de France with Suez SA, a waste and water company, and sold his 25 percent interest in the German media venture Bertelsmann for 5.8 billion dollars in 2006.

Mr. Albert Frère and Bernard Arnault, the chairman of LVMH, the French luxury-goods firm, co-owned the Chateau Cheval Blanc vineyard located in Saint-Émilion, France. In 2015, Frère retired as chief executive of Groupe Bruxelles Lambert.

Early Life: Childhood, Education

He was born Albert Frère on Feb. 4, 1926, in Fontaine-l’Évêque, Belgium, and was raised in the family of a nail merchant named Oscar. Although he started helping out in the family’s business from an early age, Frère had to leave his studies to run the family business by himself after his father died.

Professional Life: Business Career

At the age of 30, Albert started investing in Belgian steel companies, and by the end of the 70s, he practically ruled over the whole steel industry in the Charleroi region. He foresaw the coming crisis of the late 1970s and sold his interests to the Belgian state after merging them with the rival steel firm Cockerill to form Cockerill-Sambre.

He used the proceeds from this sale to establish an investment empire around the holding company Pargesa which he established with the Canadian businessman Paul Desmarais.

Pargesa took control of the Belgian holding company Groupe Bruxelles Lambert in the year 1982 and over the year added stakes in such wide-ranging companies as Tractebel, Compagnie Luxembourgoise de Télédiffusion (CLT), Petrofina, and Royale Belge Insurance.

He also promoted international consolidation of the sectors in which he was involved, selling RTL to Bertelsmann, Petrofina to Total S.A., Tractebel to Suez, Royale Belge to AXA, and Banque Bruxelles Lambert to ING Group.

Personal Life: Wife, Children, Private Interests

Frère was a married man and the father of three children. After separating from his first wife Nelly Depoplimont, he married Christine Hennuy afterward.

He received the title of baron from King Albert II of Belgium in 1995. He was also a member of the Cercle Gaulois. His son is the vice-chairman of Pargesa and chairman of Groupe Bruxelles Lambert, and his daughter is on the board of both companies.

Albert Frere Net Worth: Salary, Assets, Income Sources

The Belgian businessman, Albert Frere, had a net worth of 5 billion dollars at the time of his death. During his late teens, his father, a nail factory owner, passed away and left Albert in control of the family business.

Albert abandoned his studies and paid attention to his family’s nail business which he grew into a massive steel empire. After selling his first company, he invested his funds in founding numerous other companies and businesses, which eventually helped him accumulate an enormous amount of fortune during the peak of his career.