Albert Frère

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.

[2] His second wife was Christine Hennuy, and they have had two children, Ségolène, and Charles-Albert, who died in 1999, in a car accident at the age of 19.

[3] He was a co-owner, together with Bernard Arnault of LVMH, of the Château Cheval Blanc winery near Bordeaux.