Richest German families lose billions in crisis

Germany's 20 wealthiest families have lost about 40 billion euros (55 billion dollars) in the economic crisis in share values alone, the financial magazine WirtschaftsWoche reported Saturday. The richest families have lost "30 percent on average" of their fortunes since the summer of 2007, leading asset manager Joachim Paul Schaefer, told the magazine.
"It is clear now that the present crisis has inflicted much deeper wounds on big family fortunes than the last four or five recessions combined," he said. "Some fortunes which have grown over the generations are as threatened as much as they were in the hyperinflation of the 1920s or during the (1930s) depression." The value of the shares held by the Quandt industrial dynasty, which owns half the capital of carmaker BMW, has halved in a year, according to WirtschaftsWoche. The magazine Manager-Magazin claimed in October that 122 German individuals or families were worth at least a billion euros (1.38 billion dollars).