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 it sure money attracts success and success attracts money as i do believe that and ive experienced myself how you can suddenly connect with people previously out of reach for. Germanys super wealthy how do they live and how do they see the country they live in. The way wealthy people in germany are talked about bothers me because it sensationalizing and sycophantic and and in no way reflects what wealthy people have done and continue to do for this country for produce long close them but. I need creates this impression of rich people being like Scrooge Mcduck that they have these money bins in which they wallow in their coins. Have a better look and Scrooge Mcduck wants more more more and thats not what world minded. I walk around in my us but not swimming and because. 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 schlosser take on balcony a friend to which the public is not invited. Its the annual hall of fame evening for the business monthly manager Magazine Party any other occasion in germany joins as many wealthy Business Owners. There giving out the. Steam to presenters dear jury members dear ladies and gentlemen welcome to manager magazines hole of fact. When we 1st founded the hall of fame in 1902 we wanted to take a stand for excellence and unconditional on trip inertia and against faint hearted ness and averageness. If 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 you ranks 25th with a personal wealth of 4500000000 euros for months fancy him it feel like me are. Collectively 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 closer tabs on germanys ultra rich every year the magazines team gathers information on wealthy germans and using the books model makes a special edition with a list of germanys 1001 richest people. Its painstaking work. What is the going how many billionaires are video from a 481. 00 the 198 last year was 136. 00 right no lester it was around 170. 00 or 170. 00 ok well that is someone who wants to get on our list of 1001 richest germans needs to have around 100000000 with the cache of cutters and 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 bison. Continent to devise and dargent. Editor in chief stephan close man has been around germanys ultra wealthy for years. What does it take to get on the list. As you go to the top id say that the top 150 spots on our list will always go to Company Owners and as even if youre a chief physician youll need to see a whole lot of patients to become a billionaire its many managers also have a hard time getting that high up here in germany theres a debate about whether the head companies too much of an index i say but if you compare it to what people in similar posts in the u. S. The u. K. Or china its peanuts for the law and also tanya and heena so that alone cant ever make you one of the truly ultra rich. Doesnt. Creating a list of the wealthiest people is especially difficult in germany theyre not because there arent enough of them and. Thats what 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 hes the least known super rich germans in the homewood he let his interview him at home. They prefer to fly under the radar to avoid envy by any means the super rich dont like to help themselves so to speak the lot of these thought no these are home stories here you can normally only get interviews inside the homes with 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 had to be guilty as this has to hurt. The super rich. 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 because there hasnt been a photo of her hymen sites germanys richest family for decades and for 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 multimillionaires. 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 in the Financial Hub frank face here in a prime location tucked behind the bank teller as sits the Asset Management company full come full can manage his german business familys 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. 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 unwarranted. 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 attitude of rich germans avoids duplicity as if it were the play. But what are they so afraid of. The habiliments one who gives 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 because i cant do it right and i might come across wrong if they think theyd have much more to lose than to gain the 1st few courses this was given come. After a lot 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 korean and one of the 10 richest germans. We asked him why germans are reluctant to show off their wealth. If you do him harm you before any wiring doing so would lead to envy in the us achievements 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 scares some off to the shore and once you buy fuel i think a lot of people find their own welfare little nauseating. I dont know draw i like it mr scott when he. Did cost money grew up poor his mother ran a small drug store and post will have his son had bigger plans and 972. 00 the idea of opening the 1st selfservice drugstore in germany came to him today hes a multimillionaire why was he happy to step into the spotlight. And function. In the early years it was just about getting the name rossman on their. Way so when i was invited to a talk show i want to small regional channel i like going because i thought 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 teased 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. And i didnt just. Within 40 years became the most profitable drugstore chain in europe with still in 6 countries. In 2018 a total of 56000 people working on the chain. Osman is active in other business areas as well and he speculates on the stock market. Because. My i was couple of private Equity Investments the largest is are all youd have between 80 and 100000000 depending on the stock so its a fair sum there are also shares in Different Industries it would just. Be boring. A little and. Youre still referred to as n s m e because small Medium Enterprise why do you think thats so. I dont really know i just think of them with 55000 employees youre not really a Medium Enterprise anymore youre in another league and then. Were back at manager magazine in hand with a special issue of being selected. The list of the richest germans includes a notably high number of Company Owners from the socalled medium sized businesses. Its a german peculiarity and its not the only one. Cover story for this Current Issue is that last year money rained down on germanys super rich. Here we have the chef loves the matriarch and her son who now owns 80 percent mom has kept only 20 scheffler sabine at 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. You know down here we have missed bargewell task 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 tax companies. Germanys economy is still extremely mild dominated and 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 snap chat and so forth a lot of 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 the very few german sail around boats like this consistently usually thats american and 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 and parked out front of it yes didnt work so. It seems the average ultra wealthy german is rarely conspicuous unlike in the u. S. 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 or especially if were talking about urban real estate where 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 are 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. Erosion of the title is the right. My 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 that there are 20000000. 00 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 probably that they can dedicate much more time to increasing their wealth but for the cold ugly times are a bargain cashed up the left party would likely say split up your wealth but my response is i also do things for the world which i live in i dont just take or im not a socialist though i can only do things because i have things. Can you know best. Is one of the great his wealth has increased he successfully transitioned his mail order business into a Digital Enterprise of the 20 companies now belong to the us a group. We wanted to know how to seize the debates about rich and poor. Do the rich understand the worries of the poor. In. The us 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 prashant and my father had to start from scratch and my father. 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 this is because theyre the people creating jobs 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 author to just a handful of valued clients and focus on this he does and you. Know is it said that rich germans are able to increase their wealth while the rest of the population gets left behind. The gifting if they think its difficult to apply terms like equity and fairness to the distribution of wealth 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 u. S. Or latin america to happen here in america. From based on 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 upward of 30000000 euros who can afford such a thing. So. This is cause and well of 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. Human someone who we were was a Company Owner thinks differently to someone who has spent their life is going to come to you. Or their families who have had money for a long time or so well. 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 who still are usually quite different from errors from kark the. Top of my stanford. Seems to have plenty of this Entrepreneurial Energy his company is not fit europes largest Fitness Studio chain. Its head courses are in an all of baking factory in berlin kind of started off small but today his wealth is valued at 250000000 euros. And theyre from but i was born near up in a small village and normally in villages you do the sports available and when i was around 1516 my role models were Arnold Schwarzenegger and stallone thats how i came to the fitness world. I went from secondary school to compete to salesman apprenticeship and became the many tales 3 supermarkets then he decided to start something new. For the for me to move through 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. 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 inverts book close to his home village he made use of some unusual methods. On the monitor 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 why. Else we had studios so i gave it some thought and came up with the next marketing gag soon also in alan at the thing that did the job and also put me on track to going from goats blog to spend then it grew from there. 10 years later i never should have reached his goal hes number one in europe and still expanding. It now owns 10 Fitness Companies as well as its own model agency. Meanwhile shana is getting ready to open Fitness Studios in the us. And suburban is getting to be number one is 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 all. 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. Think convinced 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 you know what will happen much tougher time and money. A c s. But there are plenty of s. In germany huge fortunes and thousands of companies have been passed from one generation to the next. They dont want to and others who shouldnt take over their parents businesses succession is hugely important among germanys richest. And harry said the Mail Order Company from h