Birgit Rausing History

Birgit was born in a village in southern Sweden in 1924, physician father and mother a housewife. She and her children own a fortune of 14,000 million dollars, after becoming owners of the packaging company after the death of Birgit's husband, the eighth largest wealth Switzerland began to amass in Sweden between bags of flour and tetrahedra paperboard. Today is the emporium Tetra Laval.

Based in Vaud for their tax benefits, Birgit and her three children leave that business to multiply without forgetting the old councils Ruben.

Birgit Rausing did not seek the money, money she chose, without asking, joined the Forbes list at 75 years of age, whereas he insists always, is philanthropy. Then the eighth installment of the series "Fortunes Swiss."

He lived a stable life, studied equivalent to high school, and late in his twenties he met during a trip to Stockholm, which was to be the man I share 45 years of life: Gad Rausing, she did not know who he was. nor cared, but fate had already written a few pages in advance.

Ruben's grandfather is the most important Rausing family. Without him, nor his sons, Hans and Gad, and the family formed by the latter with Birgit and her three children would have inherited everything they have.

Ruben used to say: "Do something that nobody has made it increasingly more difficult."

He succeeded and made the most of that talent. Born in Raus, near Helsingborg, Sweden. He studied economics at Stockholm in 1920 and Ph.D. in Columbia, New York.

Travel and live in the United States changed the course of his life. There, he found the concept of convenience stores, a trade structure that did not exist in Europe, but in which he saw all the future projection and finally did.

And in 1929, which saw the stock market crash on Wall Street that triggered the Great Depression, Ruben Rausing joined one of his best friends, Eric Akerlund, to establish the first factory in Sweden Northern Europe specializing in packaging.

Akerlund & Rausing They called the company and soon became leader of the entire Continent.

The first project to store bags of flour from a system to revolutionize the transportation of this basic input then only sold in bulk and often contaminated.

The next major finding of Ruben Rausing was the packaging for milk.

That is, the distribution in complicated glass bottles sold in supermarkets (broken bottles, sterilization) and had to return them, so, so in the 40's created heat-sealable plastic a few years later ended up becoming the milk cartons they know practically every country in the world.

By 1951, the two partners had already established a subsidiary of its parent company in northern Sweden, which called Tetra Pak, whose original purpose was to sell cardboard tetrahedrons.

In 1965, after long talks, Rausing sold his stake in the company Aikerlund & Rausing, and bought all the shares held by Tetra Pak, which decided to specialize.

His goal was to focus on the manufacture of packaging for the distribution of fluids. And did so until 1991, when his company started a new stage.

Tetra Pak acquired Alfa Laval, one of the leading companies in the sale of equipment for the food industry.

In 1992, the company underwent a complete reorganization and in 1993 formed the group Tetra Laval, Tetra Pak, now comprising and De Laval.

The family trust accounts walking well, so Birgit had little to worry about it ... to 2000. Gad, her husband, died in January, barely crossed the threshold of the new millennium, and Birgit and her three children inherit a fortune that was about 9,000 million francs.

Birgit moved permanently to live in the canton of Vaud, Switzerland. First, for the pleasure that is lakes and serene landscapes. Second, for an argument for their children as an irrefutable: the tax benefits to be gained by filing in Switzerland.

Thus, his three sons took over the consortium, Björn is the head of mergers and acquisitions of Tetra Laval.

Kristen, the largest, single, spends his days between Great Britain and Switzerland, is passionate about riding, discipline practiced since childhood, and become part of the financial decisions of the group. And Finn also oversees the family business while he is Chairman of the Institute of Applied Economics, Sweden.