While the world’s super-rich had a slight drop in their wealth last year, the 100 richest Austrians can look forward to a five percent increase in wealth.
Their assets grew to 210 billion euros, according to the current ranking in the Friday edition of the business magazine ‘trend’. On the one hand, the increase in assets is due to the fact that the share of financial assets in this country is lower, and on the other hand, company values have increased significantly in some cases.
When assessing investments in listed companies, the magazine used the values as at the reporting date in mid-May 2023. In addition, capital markets have recovered significantly compared to 2022.
The Porsche and Piech families are still the undisputed winners. However, with the share prices of their main investments Porsche SE and Volkswagen, their assets fell slightly to 38.8 billion euros.
Ownership of Mateschitz son increased by 30%
But Mark Mateschitz, who replaced his late father Didi Mateschitz as the richest Austrian, is getting closer: after all, the economic success of the Red Bull group is undiminished. According to “trend”, Mateschitz’s property increased by 30 percent to about 32.5 billion euros.
The Viennese entrepreneur Georg Stumpf is in third place in the top 100 for the first time. His German industrial plant manufacturer exyte will achieve a turnover of around seven billion euros this year. In addition, there are significant financial assets from previous real estate developments and transactions.
The entrepreneur Maria-Elisabeth Schaeffler owes it to Maria-Elisabeth Schaeffler that Stumpf overtook the rankings. The billionaire heiress with an Austrian passport is only on the list with her 20 percent share in the German family holding company (Schaffler, Conti, Vitesco), which equates to a net worth of 1.8 billion euros and puts her in 27th place. 80 percent belong to her son Georg Schaeffler.
Benko in top ten despite turbulence
It’s a bit turbulent for Signa founder René Benko at the moment, but he managed to stay in the top 10 with ease. His assets have fallen by a few hundred million to 4.2 billion euros. According to the “trend”, this has less to do with the processes at Kika-Leiner and the German department store group Karstadt-Kaufhof. His calculated share in Signa Prime, the heart of his real estate group, has fallen and his online sports retailer Signa Sports United has also lost a lot of value.
The number of billionaires will remain the same in 2022
In general, the nominal increase in wealth among the top 100 wealthiest was about five percent below inflation. In real terms, ie adjusted for inflation, the super-rich also posted a small minus in Austria. The number of billionaires in the trend ranking remained constant at 49.
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
