Margarita Louis-Dreyfus

Margarita Louis-Dreyfus is a Russian-born Swiss billionaire businesswoman, chairperson of the Louis-Dreyfus Group.

Early life

Born Margarita Olegovna Bogdanova in Leningrad, she was raised by her grandfather, an electrical engineer, and studied law in Moscow and economics in Leningrad.

Career

When her husband, Robert Louis-Dreyfus, died of leukemia on July 4, 2009, she became heiress to the Louis-Dreyfus group and at the same time a majority shareholder of Marseille, a football club her husband had owned since 1996. Her husband had integrated her into the management of the group in 2007, when he learned of the existence of his illness.
On 29 August 2016, Louis-Dreyfus and the Marseille mayor, Jean-Claude Gaudin, stated during a press conference with Frank McCourt that McCourt had agreed in principle to purchase the French Ligue 1 football club, Marseille, owned by Louis-Dreyfus. The purchase deal was completed for a reported price tag of 45 million euros on 17 October 2016.

Personal life

In 1988, on a Zurich to London flight, she met Robert Louis-Dreyfus. They married in 1992 and had three sons, including Kyril who is the chairman and majority shareholder of English Premier League football club, Sunderland. Margarita, who had been working for a circuit-board equipment seller, became a full-time wife and mother. She took over as chairman of the Louis Dreyfus Group in 2009, following her husband's death from leukemia.
In 2016, she had a net worth of $9.5 billion. She is a Swiss citizen living in Zurich with her three sons, according to Forbes. Her partner was Philipp Hildebrand the former head of the Swiss central bank. She has twin daughters with him who were born in 2016.
Margarita is the second cousin once removed of American actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus.