Stephan Schmidheiny

About Stephan Schmidheiny

Stephan Schmidheiny's fortune dates back to 1867, when his great-grandfather founded a brick yard in eastern Switzerland that eventually became a giant in building materials.

Schmidheiny joined the family business in 1974 as a sales manager. He became board president of his father's construction materials company Swiss Eternit Group in 1976 at age 28.

When his father Max divided the estate in 1984, Stephan inherited Eternit while brother Thomas got cement and concrete supplier Holcim.

Stephan Schmidheiny sold all his holdings in the Swiss Eternit group at the end of the 1980s and invested in other businesses.

Since 2009, Schmidheiny has faced criminal charges in Italy for negligence that led to 2,000 asbestos-related deaths at Italian Eternit factories in the 1970s and 80s. Proceedings are still ongoing.