Metro's billionaire co-founder Beisheim commits suicide

16:43, 19 February 2013

BERLIN. February 19. KAZINFORM Otto Beisheim, the billionaire co- founder of Metro AG who imported the U.S. Cash & Carry concept to Germany in the 1960s, has died. He was 89.

Beisheim lost the will to live as he battled with an incurable illness, according to an e-mailed statement from the Beisheim Group today that implied he took his own life. His body was discovered at his home in the southern German town of Rottach-Egern, according to the statement.

His fortune is estimated at $4.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Beisheim held a 10 percent stake in Metro, Germany's biggest retailer, which he co-founded in 1964 with the help of the Haniel and Schmidt-Ruthenbeck families. He also owned a namesake real-estate complex in the center of Berlin, which contains two five-star hotels. He managed his investments through Beisheim Holding Schweiz in Switzerland.

Beisheim retired from Dusseldorf-based Metro's board in 1994 and, in 2009 and in 2010, reduced his stake from about 18.5 percent after abandoning a voting agreement with the families, who two years earlier had increased their holding to 50.1 percent, Kazinform refers to Bloomberg.

"With Cash & Carry, he pushed the wholesale format, which was ideal for countries in central and eastern Europe after the end of communism because the retail landscape was so fragmented there," Boris Planer, chief economist at Planet Retail in Frankfurt, said by phone. "Even today, Cash & Carry in emerging markets continues to be a very strong growth driver for Metro as a global group. It continues to be Metro's biggest hope to this day."

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