Susanne Klatten Wiki, Age, Husband, Children, Family, Biography & More

Susanne Klatten

Susanne Klatten is a German businesswoman and the richest woman in Germany. She is known for being a part of the supervisory board of the automobile production company BMW. She also holds a 19.2% stake in BMW.

Wiki/Biography

Susanne Klatten, a.k.a as Susanne Hanna Ursula Klatten [1]Google Arts and Culture was born on Saturday, April 28, 1962 (age 59 years; as of 2021), in Bad Homburg, Germany. Susanne completed her schooling and went to the University of Buckingham, England, to complete her bachelor’s degree in business administration. After working for a few years, Susanne pursued a master’s degree in business administration at IMD Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland. [2]Bloomberg

Physical Appearance

Height (approx.): 5′ 4″

Eye Color: Grey

Hair Color: Blonde

Susanne Klatten

Family

Parents & Siblings

Susanne was born into a business family. Her father’s name is Herbert Werner Quandt, and he was a German industrialist. Her mother’s name is Johanna Maria Quandt, and she was a businesswoman. She has a younger brother, Stefan Quandt.

Herbert Werner Quandt with Johanna Quandt

Herbert Werner Quandt with Johanna Quandt

Susanne Klatten with her brother, Stefan Quandt

Susanne Klatten with her brother, Stefan Quandt

Relationship

Susanne met Jan Klatten when she working in the BMW’s Regensburg plant as an intern. They got married in 1990, and the couple got separated in 2018 for unknown reasons. They have three children from the marriage.

Susanne Klatten with her husband, Jan Klatten

Susanne Klatten with her husband, Jan Klatten

Career

After completing her bachelor’s degree, Susanne joined Young & Rubicam, an advertising agency in Frankfurt. She then started working in Dresdner Bank in London. In 1982, Susanne’s father died, and she received a 50.1% stake in the pharmaceutical and chemical manufacturer Altana. She took up the responsibility of being a part of the supervisory board and played a major role in taking the company to a world-class corporation level. This helped them earn a position in German DAX’s list of top 30 companies. In 2006, Susanne sold the rights of Altana Pharmaceuticals to a Swiss company, Nycomed, for €4.5 billion, and this money was divided among the shareholders as compensation. In 2009, Susanne bought most of the shares of Altana, and along with Altana, SKion was another firm that was wholly owned and operated by Susanne. In March 2009, Susanne was given an option by SGL Carbon, a German graphite maker brand, to raise the shares to almost a quarter of the shares. She received 19.2% of shares of BMW after her mother’s death. She became a member of the supervisory board in BMW along with her brother, Stefan Quandt.

Susanne Klatten (extreme left) in a meeting at UnternehmerTUM

Susanne Klatten (extreme left) in a meeting at UnternehmerTUM

Controversy

In 2007, Susanne Klatten made the headlines when her relationship with the Swiss playboy and conman, Helg Sgarbi, came in the limelight. The matter got out of hand when Sgarbi asked Susanne to pay up $49 million to him, and if she failed to pay the amount, he would leak the explicit videos of both of them he secretly recorded in a resort. However, Klatten didn’t fall for his trap and filed a complaint against him, and later, Sgarbi was arrested by the police officials at a motorway service station in Germany. During the interrogation, Klatten agreed that she had paid €7 million to Sgarbi. After the hearing in court, Sgarbi was sentenced to six years in prison for trying to extort millions of euros from a number of wealthy women. [3]The Guardian

Helg Sgarbi with his lawyer during the court hearing

Helg Sgarbi with his lawyer during the court hearing

Awards & Honours

Susanne Klatten received the Bayerischer Verdienstorden (the Bavarian Order of Merit) in 2007.

Address

Günther-Quandt-Haus
Seedammweg 55, D-61352 Bad Homburg v. d. Höhe,
Federal Republic of Germany

Net Worth

Forbes reported Susanne Klatten’s net worth to be $30 billion, and she is positioned at 53 on the list of the richest people in the world. [4]Forbes

Facts/Trivia

  • Susanne often uses her alias Susanne Kant to avoid revealing her identity. She did the same when she first met Jan to make sure his intentions were right, and he was serious about their relationship.
  • Susanne Klatten is politically inclined towards the center-right political party the Christian Democratic Union. She has often supported the party by making generous donations to support their operations.
  • Klatten founded UnternehmerTUM, an educational center for innovation and business creation at the Technical University of Munich.
  • In 2008, the Quandt family was questioned when the Hanns Joachim Friedrichs’ Award-winning documentary film ‘The Silence of the Quandts’ talked about the role of the family businesses during the Second World War. The documentary was made by the German broadcaster ARD and revealed the truth of the use of slave laborers by the Quandt family in their factories during World War II. Within a week of its release, four members of the family ordered a research project where a historian was asked to examine the family’s relation to Hitler’s dictatorship. [5]Independent A 1200-page report was submitted by Bonn historian, Joachim Scholtyseck, which was released in 2011, and he concluded that-

    The Quandt’s were linked inseparably with the crimes of the Nazis.”

  • In 2018, Susanne sold over 1.12 million shares worth $82 million to pay up for a loan that she had taken to invest in a luxury high-rise office building, The Winx Riverside, in Frankfurt. In an interview with Manager Magazin, she talked about how people misunderstood their families and said-

    Our inherited wealth was a misunderstood burden and that people underestimate the downsides of controlling billions.”

    The Winx Tower during its construction phase

    The Winx Tower during its construction phase

  • Susanne Klatten founded the Nantesbuch Foundation, an estate site that was converted into an art and nature foundation, allowing people to get away from the rush of the city and encounter the power of nature. The goal of this foundation is to bring people closer to various art forms and nature to provide a soothing and rejuvenating environment.
  • Her father, Herbert Quandt was a German businessman who helped BMW in the early stages to bring the company out of its crisis. Johanna Maria Quandt, her mother, was Herbert’s third wife, and Herbert had four children from his previous two marriages. Herbert made sure that he divided all his businesses among his wives and children before his death to avoid any disputes among them.

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