Headlines

Otto Beisheim Dead by Suicide

Metro Group founder, 89, was a warehouse retailing pioneer

Published

11 years ago

February 19, 2013

eric.caoili

Otto Beisheim, one of the founders of retail group Metro AG (Dusseldorf, Germany), was found dead at his home near the Tegernsee Lake in Bavaria earlier this week.

The suspicion is that the 89-year-old billionaire committed suicide after being diagnosed with an incurable illness.

He was a 10 percent stakeholder in Metro, whose holdings now include the Galeria Kaufhof department store chain, the hypermarket chain Real (which includes former Walmart Germany stores) and Metro and Kakro Cash and Carry.

Beisheim was credited with helping introduce the warehouse, cash-and-carry concept to Germany in the 1960s, where trade customers such as hotels and restaurants could buy products in bulk.

The first Metro Cash and Carry opened in Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany, in 1964. The warehouse stores remain the Metro Group’s core business, contributing almost half of company sales.

Beisheim was the third-largest Metro shareholder, behind the Haniel and Schmidt-Ruthenbeck families, and his net worth was estimated at $3.3 billion by Forbes in March 2012, making him Germany's 22nd richest person.

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