Margarita Louis-Dreyfus

Born Margarita Olegovna Bogdanova (Russian: Маргарита Олеговна Богданова) in Leningrad, she was raised by her grandfather, an electrical engineer, and studied law in Moscow and economics in Leningrad.

When her husband, Robert Louis-Dreyfus, died of leukemia on July 4, 2009, she became heir to the Louis-Dreyfus group and at the same time a majority shareholder of Olympique de Marseille, a football club her husband had owned since 1996.[1] Her husband had integrated her into the management of the group in 2007, when he learned of the existence of his illness.[2]

On 29 August 2016, Louis-Dreyfus and the Marseille mayor, Jean-Claude Gaudin, stated during a press conference with Frank McCourt that McCourt had agreed in principle to purchase the French Ligue 1 football club, Olympique de Marseille, owned by Louis-Dreyfus. The purchase deal was completed for a reported price tag of 45 million euros on 17 October 2016.[3][4][5]

In 1988, on a Zurich to London flight, she met Robert Louis-Dreyfus. They married in 1992 and had three sons, including Kyril who is the chairman and majority shareholder of English Championship football club, Sunderland.[6][7][8][9] Margarita, who had been working for a circuit-board equipment seller, became a full-time wife and mother.[10] She took over as chairman of the Louis Dreyfus Group in 2009, following her husband's death from leukemia.[11]

In 2016, she had a net worth of $9.5 billion. She is a Swiss citizen living in Zurich with her three sons (Éric born in 1992, and twins, Maurice and Kyril, born in 1997), according to Forbes.[11] Her partner is Philipp Hildebrand, the former head of the Swiss central bank.[12] She gave birth to twin girls on 21 March 2016.[13]

Margarita is the second cousin once removed (by marriage) of American actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus.[14]