The incredible life of Margarita Louis-Dreyfus - orphans from Leningrad and the richest women in the world

• The incredible life of Margarita Louis-Dreyfus - orphans from Leningrad and the richest women in the world

Margarita Louis-Dreyfus is one of the richest women in the world - it is worth an estimated 6, $ 4 billion. But the Russian-born entrepreneur, which the French press calls the "Queen" has not always been so rich.

Her life was in 1988 completely changed the meeting on the plane with her future husband Robert Louis-Dreyfus, transformed the former seller of computer equipment in the mother and homemaker.

Years later, after the death of Robert Louis-Dreyfus from leukemia, another sharp turn occurred in her life - she took over the reins of the company and its raw materials met a new partner - the former head of the Swiss National Bank.

Let's take a look at her incredible life.

Margarita Louis-Dreyfus (nee Bogdanov) was born in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), July 1, 1962.

Unfortunately, her parents were killed in a train accident when Margaret was seven years old. So basically, the girl raised her grandfather Leonid Bogdanov. Thanks to him, she was educated and studied at the Faculty of Moscow State University. Leonid Bogdanov died in 1985.

It has also received a degree in economics at the Leningrad Institute of Soviet Trade.

After graduating Margarita worked as a vendor of equipment for the production of printed circuit boards in the company LATRON AG.

In the late 1980s, she married a Swiss student who studied in the USSR on the exchange, but divorced a year later. The name of her first husband and the wedding date unknown.

But in 1988 everything changed: during the flight from Zurich to London, she met Robert Louis-Dreyfus.

Flight Margarita asked him what time it was, and he pulled out a photograph of his bobtail. After that I slipped a spark of sympathy between them.

Robert Louis-Dreyfus - a cousin of American actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus, known for major roles in TV shows Seinfeld and Veep.

The past Robert is also quite interesting. Growing up in Paris, he came from a wealthy and educated family. But he was a poor student who flunked Baccalaureate.

However, Robert was extremely good at poker. Attended Harvard Business School through presentations about their experiences in the Six Day War with Israel, the Arab states, he paid for his studies in poker winnings. (The picture is not it, but it's very similar to what he probably had to go through at Harvard.)

He made a fortune by saving companies fall into distress. Among them were Adidas and advertising firm Saatchi & Saatchi. In this photo he left, signed in 1999 a contract with the head of the Federation of New Zealand rugby Rob Fisher.

After the meeting in the aircraft, Robert asked Marguerite to translate the document into Russian. "I told him:" You know, you could invite me to dinner without translation, "and he replied:" Oh, yes, yes "," - she later recalled.

In 1992, Robert and Margaret were married, and Margaret became a full-fledged wife, mother and a citizen of Switzerland. The couple had three children - twins Eric and Cyril and Maurice (in this photo with his mother).

During this time Robert has significantly increased his fortune and eventually in 1996 became the largest shareholder of "Marseille" - the famous French football club.

In 2000, he returned to the family company for commodity trading, which specializes in agriculture, Louis-Dreyfus Group. It was founded by his great-grandfather in 1851.

However, in 2009, Robert Louis-Dreyfus died at the age of 63 from leukemia. Here fans pay tribute to Robert's home match, "Marseille".

Before he died, Robert created a family trust called Akira BV, which held a majority stake, calling the family guardian Margarita Louis-Dreyfus Commodities.

This meant that Margaret inherited the post of chairman in the Louis-Dreyfus Group Board of Directors and the "Marseille".

The Louis-Dreyfus Group voting was impossible, as her late husband blocked the action for 99 years.

After the death of Margaret husband had to fight for it, to respect it began in the company's management. "It's a man's world, and mostly men do not take women seriously," - she said.

Philippe Chalmin, an economics professor, said: "As a rule, the boss was a trader. You might think that it would be easy to live on the income from the state of her wealthy husband, but it was not so. "

In 2012, Margaret told Bloomberg, that its purpose is to preserve the Louis-Dreyfus Commodities Group for heirs Robert, what was "dying wish of her husband." On a photo of their son Cyril in 2011.

Now the 18-year-old twins Cyril and Maurice go to school in Singapore, "for knowing new cultures and expand their horizons," as Margaret said in an interview with Bloomberg. In the photo, Maurice (left).

At the same time, her 23-year-old son Eric probation in another commodity giant - Glencore.

However, Margaret made some huge changes. In 2012, she sold the energy business of the company and increased its share in the Louis-Dreyfus Group.

As the leader of "Marseille", she gave up the absorption billionaire Al-Walid, the Prince of Saudi Arabia.

But the personal life of Margaret was again in the spotlight when in 2013 she met Philipp Hildebrand, who is now 52 years old, - the vice-chairman of BlackRock Inc. and former Chairman of the Board of the Swiss National Bank.

In the same year, Hildebrand amicably parted ways with Kashey Hildebrand, after a couple has been involved in foreign exchange scandal.

It has been argued that Kashya earned 75,000 Swiss francs, using insider information from the monetary policy of the Swiss central bank. Philipp Hildebrand resigned from his post as head of the National Bank in 2012.

There is not much information about the personal life of Margaret and Philip, but there are quite a lot of photos, featuring the elite circles in which they revolve. Here they are with the head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, in 2014.

And here - with former French President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2015.

And this month, Louis-Dreyfus Group has confirmed that Margarita is pregnant - this time two girls - and will give birth in early April.