Albert Frère

Albert Frère

98 year
Finance
Consumer Non-Durables
Consumer Services

Profile

Albert, Baron Frère (born 4 February 1926 in Fontaine-l'Évêque near Charleroi, Belgium) is a Belgian businessman and the richest man in Belgium.

Frère grew up as a son of a nail merchant and helped in the business since an early age. His father died when Frère was 17; Frère had to leave school and run the family business by himself. At the age of 30, he started investing in Belgian steel factories and by the end of the 1970s he practically controlled the whole steel industry in the region of Charleroi. He foresaw the coming steel crisis of the late 1970s and sold his enterprises to the Belgian state after merging them with the competing steel firm Cockerill to create Cockerill-Sambre.

Frère used the proceeds from this sale to build an investment empire around the Swiss holding company Pargesa which he founded with the Canadian investor Paul Desmarais. Pargesa took over the Belgian holding company Groupe Bruxelles Lambert in 1982 and over the year added significant stakes in such wide ranging Belgian companies as Petrofina, Royale Belge Insurance, Compagnie Luxembourgoise de Télédiffusion (CLT), and Tractebel. He actively promoted international consolidation of the sectors in which he was involved, selling Banque Bruxelles Lambert to ING Group, Royale Belge to Axa, Tractebel to Suez, Petrofina to Total S.A., and RTL to Bertelsmann.

Frère is married and has three children. In 2002, he received the title of baron from the Belgian king Albert II. He is a co-owner, together with Bernard Arnault of LVMH, of the Château Cheval Blanc winery near Bordeaux. He is a member of the Cercle Gaulois.

Overview over Albert Frère's shareholdings as of May 2009

Schematic overview of Albert Frère's shareholdings



Source @ Wikipedia

Former positions of Albert Frère

CompaniesPositionEnd
Chairman 2018-12-02
Corporate Officer/Principal 2018-12-02
Belholding Belgium SA Director/Board Member 2018-12-02
Société des Amis du Louvre Director/Board Member 2018-12-02
Université du Travail Director/Board Member 2018-12-02
See the detail of Albert Frère's experience

Experiences
Positions held

Active

Inactive

Listed companies

Private companies

See the detail of Albert Frère's experience

Connections

100 +

1st degree connections

28

1st degree companies

Male

Female

Members of the board

Executives

See the personal network

Linked companies

Listed companies4
LVMH

Consumer Non-Durables

GROUPE BRUXELLES LAMBERT SA

Finance

M6 MÉTROPOLE TÉLÉVISION

Consumer Services

ENGIE

Utilities

Private companies22

Industrial Services

Non-Energy Minerals

Commercial Services

Finance

Finance

Finance

Consumer Non-Durables

Finance

Finance

Consumer Non-Durables

Miscellaneous

Miscellaneous

Finance

Belholding Belgium SA

Centre de Transposition Semi-Industrielle de la Recherche

Miscellaneous

Finance

Finance

GBL Energy SARL

Cercle de Lorraine ASBL

Société des Amis du Louvre

Féderal Charity the Friends of the Blind

See company connections