Schmidheiny is honorary chairman of LafargeHolcim, the world's biggest cement maker. The Zurich, Switzerland-based company employs more than 100,000 people and had revenue of 27.5 billion Swiss francs ($28.1 billion) in 2018. The billionaire also has interests in vineyards and the Grand Resort Bad Ragaz.
Thomas Schmidheiny's net worth of $4.84B can buy ...
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The majority of Schmidheiny's fortune is derived from his stake in LafargeHolcim. He owns 8.5% of the shares as of June 18, 2019, according to LafargeHolcim's website. The Zurich, Switzerland-based company is the world's largest cement maker, according to the Global Cement Directory website.
The billionaire has collected more than $1 billion in Holcim dividends since 1989 and used a portion of those proceeds to buy back the company's shares in 2011.
The value of his cash and other assets includes his vineyards and is based on an analysis of dividends, insider transactions, taxes and market performance.
He also has a 85% stake in Grand Resort Bad Ragaz, a publicly-traded Swiss resort, according to its 2017 annual report.
Thomas Schmidheiny was born in 1945, into a family of industrialists in Balgach, Switzerland. His grandfather, Ernst, invested in a cement business and an asbestos processing company in the early 20th century. His father, Max, and uncle, Ernst, expanded the business over more than seven decades.
Schmidheiny received a master's degree in mechanical engineering from ETH Zurich, followed by an MBA from IMD business school in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1972. He began his career at Holcim's Mexican subsidiary Cementos Apasco in 1970, and became the company's CEO in 1978.
The billionaire inherited Holcim, the world's largest cement maker, and his brother, Stephan, received Eternit, an asbestos processing company, when their father divided his estate between them in 1984. The billionaire resigned as Holcim chairman in 2003, after paying a fine of $1.5 million for insider trading. He was investigated by the Spanish government when he bought shares in metals producer Asturiana de Zinc in 2000, after learning of a pending takeover bid by Xstrata, the mining company for which he was a board member.
A merger between Holcim and French cement maker Lafarge was completed in July 2015.