Our germany start over 21st on t. W. Germanys super rich no other european country has as many billionaires and while their fortunes are growing more and more germans are living under the poverty line set by the organization for Economic Cooperation and development the o. E. C. D. The press frequently reports on the countrys high income inequality and low social mobility but little is known about the super rich the truth see that sure money attracts success and success attracts money but i do believe that ive experienced myself how you can suddenly connect with people previously out of reach for a kind of. Germanys super wealthy how do they live and how do they see the country they live in. As the guy with tyson who got away. Wealthy people in germany are talked about bothers me because it sensationalizing and sycophantic and in no way reflects what wealthy people have done and continue to do for this country for this long. But the only creates this impression of rich people being like Scrooge Mcduck that they have these money bins in which they wallow in their coins. Book Scrooge Mcduck wants more more more and thats not what world minded i like earning money for us but not swimming and. We wanted to get closer to the discreet world of germanys ultra rich of Company Owners and as with millions we wanted to find out what makes those on top of the world take. Every year an exclusive event takes place in the. Back near frankfurt to which the public is not invited but its the annual hall of fame evening for the business monthly manager magazine. Any other occasion in germany joins as many wealthy Business Owners. In. The. U. K. Steamed presenters did jury members deal ladies and gentlemen welcome to manager magazines hall of fame. When we 1st founded the hall of fame in 1902 we wanted to take a stand for excellence and unconditional entrepreneurship and against faint hearted ness and averageness. We begin our nominations today with a moment and his Company United internet is valued at around 11000000000 and on our list of germanys richest people the ranks 25th with a personal wealth of 4500000000 euros for months once the schmidt feel ive made. Electively the guests at this elegant evening are worth billions of euros. This is the face of wealth in germany main email and although were close to the super rich here their world remains somehow also for each. And home to manage a magazines Parent Company the Speaker Group hardly any publication keeps close a tabs on germanys ultra rich every year the magazine steen gathers information on wealthy germans and using the forbes model makes a special edition with a list of germanys 1001 richest people. Its painstaking work. For them how many billionaires are video of a 480 well the 198 last year was 136 right no verster it was around 170 or 170 ok all that is someone who wants to get on our list of 1001 riches germans needs to have around 100000000 with their cash often quite as you have to be money in the bank most people have it is assets or is property but thats the ballpark were looking for to be on our list of the richest germans the 1000 bison. Continent to the ice and argent. Editing chief stephan close one has been around germanys ultra wealthy for years. What does it take to get on the list. As the top id say that the top 150 spots on our list will always go to Company Owners and asses even if youre a chief physician youll need to see a whole lot of patients to become a billionaire many managers also have a hard time getting that high up here in germany theres a debate about whether the heads of dax companies too much of an index but if you compare it to what people in similar posts in the u. S. The u. K. Or china its peanuts in front of the home also tanya not and he know so that alone cant ever make you one of the truly ultra rich. Dozens of nations. Creating a list of the wealthiest people is especially difficult in germany theyre not because there arent enough of them. And thats when you can show he somehow managed to amass this huge empire and fortune in just a few years its offered for his wealth is estimated to be around 4000000000 because hes the least known super rich germans in the home would you let us interview him at home. They prefer to fly under the radar to avoid envy. Of the super rich dont like to help themselves so to speak in the midst of this thought no these are home stories here you can normally only get interviews inside the homes or the 2nd tier one there you always get guys who get a kick out of publicity. Like mr marsh. Getting a good shot of mr marsh myer is never a problem. But the real money keeps itself hidden guilty as this has to stick to the super rich will try. And to go unnoticed sometimes i even try to hide there are no photos of several people on our list and you wont find a single picture if you go online and google them and see if there hasnt been a photo of the hymen sites germanys richest family for decades and so many stay hidden because they want to live normal lives and think that they wont be able to do so if theyre known to be multibillionaire. And live in can. For months interview requests were rejected agreed film sheets were cancelled last minute none of the rich wanted to talk to us about money. Finally we got lucky and the financial help frank face here in a prime location tucked behind the bank towers sits the Asset Management company full can focus on manages german business families fortunes. Its chairman christan fanbase the time provided some insight as to why rich germans also shine. Detroit you know many wealthy germans are reluctant about stepping out into the public eye because theyre afraid they could be seen negatively. So they ask themselves what do i get from showing myself to the public it doesnt give me anything on the contrary it could lead to some crazy person taking notice and breaking into my home or kidnapping one of my children. And those fears are not going warranted. But then theres also the fact that many errors are inheriting fortunes that are somehow tainted by or related to the 3rd reich. Is. The upper tier of rich germans avoids publicity as if it were the play. What are they so afraid of. The. I asked a number of my friends whether theyd like to be interviewed for this film and each one said no theyd say. Someone else can do that better than me i cant do it right and i might come across wrong if they think theyd have much more to lose than to game over a few courses this was given come. After a loss of back and forth with this press team one ultra rich german did agree to meet us otto is the chairman of the Supervisory Board of the auto group and one of the 10 richest germans. We asked him why the germans are reluctant to show off a well. Few people from any wiring are doing so would lead to envy in the us achievement and wealth are seen in a highly positive way. But here they carry a bitter aftertaste where does his fortune come from or how did he get his wealth that scare some off to the shore and once you buy fuel i think a lot of people find their own welfare little nauseating. I dont at all i like it mr scott when he. Did cost money grew up poor his mother ran a small drug store and postal had after his son had bigger plans in 1972 the idea of opening the 1st selfservice drug still in germany came to him today hes a multimillionaire why was he happy to step into the spotlight. And function is that today in the early years it was just about getting the name rossman out there. Which i when i was invited to a talk show i want to small regional channel i like going because i thought on the free publicity for my company or negated by the film. But then 2 or 3 years ago i started to understand that this slightly flabby balding man who has teeth arent perfect but was hungry for recognition himself. Back then i thought i was stepping into the limelight to promote the company but everyone rationalizes their motives. I didnt do this. Within 40 years became the most profitable drug store chain in europe with stores in 6 countries. In 2018 a total of 56000 people were working on the chain. Osman is active in other business areas as well and he speculates on the stock market. Because. My example of private Equity Investments is the largest as there are you know between 80. 10 depending on the start rate so its a for some there are also shares in Different Industries it would just. Be boring to. Find. The one that youre still referred to as an s. Enemy because small Medium Enterprise why do you think thats so. I dont really know. With 55000 employees youre not really a Medium Enterprise anymore youre in another league. Were back at manager magazine in hand. With a special issue of being selected. A list of the richest germans includes a notably high number of company other news from the socalled medium sized businesses. Its a german peculiarity and its not the only one. A cover story for this Current Issue is that last year money rained down on germanys super rich. But up here we have the scheffler the matriarch and her son who now owns 80 percent mom has kept only 20 scheffler subpoena the top of our list for many many years i would have to check exactly how much theyre worth but around 20000000000 give or take a bit. Down here we have mr barge traffic in the head of the henkel clan shes the 1st and so far only woman chairman of the Supervisory Board of one of the 30 dax companies. Germanys economy is still extremely male dominated whats interesting is if you compare our list here with a list of the ultra rich in the us if we have a lot of old money Old Companies that have been around for decades in the us you have all those lands from Facebook Google snapchat and so forth that have bubbled up to the top of the list we dont have that type of thing here. And compared with other countries germans are very reticent about showing their wealth. Very few germans sail around in boats like this consistently and usually touts americans who russians chinese and so on once i hear you dont really show your money you might have various houses villas and such but theres likely to be a spark in parked out front of. It seems the average ultra wealthy german israeli conspicuous unlike in the us athletes actors and t. V. Personalities rarely make it onto the german list. Even though we put a great deal of love and sweat into estimating his fortunes are probably much bigger than the tide especially if were talking about going real estate prices have exploded over the past 10 years a lot of people have doubled their Property Assets so if you started with 5000000000 in that market youre likely to have 10 or 15000000000 today its in often. Money makes money but well rich germans fortunes have exploded since the financial crisis due to the increase in value of real estate stocks and assets those with average incomes have had to swallow losses. Even liberal economics institutes are concerned about social inequality in germany how do the super rich see this disparity. Tied to this headline in the newspaper reads the rich are getting richer and richer which is true the rich are getting richer yes its true but its also false. There are 20000000 citizens in germany who have assets worth between 100001 1000000. So millions of people are getting richer. Now the rich are getting richer even faster because one factor is probable they can dedicate much more time to increasing their wealth its beautiful but ugly times are bad and question of the left party would likely say split up your wealth but my response is i also do things for the world which i live and i dont just take or im not a socialist. I can only do things like i dont have things. Can you know best of us have a. Mission is one of the rich whose wealth has increased he successfully transitioned his mail order business into a Digital Enterprise over 20 companies now belong to the us or britain. We wanted to know how to seize the debates about rich and poor. Do the rich understand the worries of the poor. And the good when people talk about those on top who dont understand those at the bottom i wouldnt say that applies to me. Because i was not born rich i came to hamburg as a refugee from west prussia and my father had to start from scratch on my father out of. Thats why i absolutely do understand People Living in poverty today. On the other hand id also say that if germany is getting more and more millionaires many people with small or medium sized businesses because generally the millionaires in question who did build the business they now run then i think thats great. Then thats a look because theyre the people creating jobs thats it for me thats what should matter in this debate we should focus on that and not rich versus poor right it is good. Ensuring that the wealth of rich families can increase despite current 0 Interest Rates is the mission of custom front company. With. Each day he and his employees send out Investment Opportunities from banks and other entities given exclusively to his wealthy clients and that this is a way to present an offer to just a handful of valued clients and focus on this leaders and. Is it fair. That rich germans are able to increase their wealth while the rest of the population gets left behind. The because you figure they think its difficult to apply terms like equity and fairness to the distribution of wealth and i would say that here in germany were better off than ever before and people here living above average circumstances like nonetheless we have to make sure the gap between rich and poor doesnt get too wide because we dont want social conflicts like in the us or latin america to happen here in america. From best of Times Company full come is a socalled multifamily Office Family office has take care of the needs of very wealthy families managing and increasing their assets it only makes sense to use Family Offices if your wealth is up would of 30000000 euros who can afford such a thing. As. This is. A Family Office like ours and obviously cant discuss its clients so we have well known german business families thats our typical client profile sort of a class of. Someone who we were once a Company Owner thinks differently to someone who has spent their life as a whole unit. Or their families who have had money for a long time so wealth is so to speak in their genes. This is that. For me and then there are families who have just come into their wealth who are still pumping with Entrepreneurial Energy guys to their usually quite different from heirs from carter. And for. The national seems to have plenty of this Entrepreneurial Energy his company is max fit europes largest Fitness Studio chain. Its head courses are in an all baking factory in berlin. Started off small but today his wealth is valued at 200. 00. It was when he finished and then from by was. Grew up in a small village normally in villages you do the sports available and when i was around 1516. 00 my role models were Arnold Schwarzenegger and stallone thats how i came to the fitness world for my son i went from secondary school to compete a salesman apprenticeship and became the many tales 3 supermarkets then he decided to start something new. For the for me. When i was 25 this but i decided to switch to the Fitness Industry my idea was to open a gym where anyone could train no matter his or her income god that was the initial idea and i had big goals i wanted to be number one in europe but thats all i had i didnt have financing. It was 997 when shall i opened his 1st Fitness Studio in this book close to his home village to make use of some unusual methods. On the truth it was a big step for me i opened my 1st business studio there under the slogan now also inverts book which people saw through as a marketing gag because customers came to me and asked where else we had studios and the common good so i gave it some thought and came up with the next marketing gag soon also in the thing that did the job and also put me on track to going from boats blog to spend then it grew from there. 10 years later i shall have reached his goal hes number one in europe and still expanding. That now owns 10 Fitness Companies as well as its own model agency. Meanwhile shallows getting ready to open Fitness Studios in the u. S. And suburban is getting to be number one. Its much easier than staying number one i think if you want to be successful you need to be a bit of an alpha animal inside. The investor would probably pick a brand and say ok that could work i like it although its probably 2 steps too far for many. But if someone doesnt want to get involved with us because of it so what. So what you can do it so i. Convince that you have an easier time if you want your way to the top and to success the clients feel it and so to partners. I think thats our situation over just us but which is why i can also imagine that someone who inherits something or takes over or even has to take over a company in the 2nd or 3rd generation so well have a much tougher time in months ago a series. But there are plenty of s. In germany huge fortunes and thousands of companies have been passed from one generation to the next. Their heirs who dont want to and others who shouldnt take over their parents businesses succession is hugely important among germanys richest. Harry said the Mail Order Company from his father and successfully managed it. For money kinda is this it will be harder for my children though because now the auto group has 123. 00 companies in over 30 countries one of the lines france is behind every Single