The Italian entrepreneur Giovanni Ferrero (58)who since 2011 leads the family empire that has Nutella as its flagship product, ranked for the first time among the 25 richest men in the world and even surpassed the founder of Facebook, Marco Zuckerberg which has suffered a notable decline.
The heir and CEO of Europe’s largest sweets manufacturer and the world’s second largest sweets and chocolate producer has risen to position 25 with a heritage of $ 38.6 billionaccording to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Michele Ferrero, Giovanni’s father, transformed the small bakery that his parents opened in the Piedmontese town of Alba in 1942 into a real empire dedicated to sweets.
Giovanni became Deputy CEO of the confectionery company Ferrero SpA in 1997 together with his brother Pietro. After his death in April 2011 in an accident, he took over as director.
Four years later, in 2015, his father passed away at his home in Monte Carlo, Monaco. His wife, Maria Franca Fissolo, took his place as president, although Giovanni was the one who remained at the head of the family business.
In addition to the Nutella hazelnut cream, other prominent products of the company are the classic chocolates Ferrero Rocherthe sweeties Asylum Y the mints TIC Tac. In 2018 Giovanni reached an agreement with the colossus Nestle for about $ 2.8 billion and bought more than 20 brands from him, including Butterfinger and BabyRuth chocolates.
Giovanni is married to Paola Rossi and has two children. He is also a lover of writing. He has gone on to publish two marketing books and five novels, a hobby he combines with sports.
The Top 5 and a shot at Zuckerberg
Tesla founder and new head of Twitter, Elon Musk, is confirmed in first place with 203,000 million dollars, followed by the king of luxury Bernard Anault (138 billion) and the Indian tycoon Gautam Adani (126 billion). The top 5 is complete Jeff Bezosfrom Amazon, also 126 billion e Bill Gatesfrom Microsoft, with 111 billion.
Among other important entrepreneurs, Steve Ballmer – with a past at Microsoft and current owner of the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers – ranks 11th with a net worth of $ 83.1 billion, above the Mexican Carlo Snellowith 74.900 million dollars.
As expected, Mark Zuckerberg had a steep drop in the rankings. It dropped to 29th place with $ 36.1 billion. The Facebook founder saw his net worth drop by more than $ 100 billion this year.
The decline in equity occurred because ObjectiveFacebook’s parent company faces investor pessimism about its future growth trajectory.
Shares of Meta fell as much as 22% in trading last Thursday, making the company worth around $ 271 billion. Zuckerberg owns nearly 367 million shares of Meta, according to the Whale Wisdom data website.
The company is facing increasing competition from other social media platforms such as Tic knockas well as skepticism about his investment in the metaverse, an environment of the virtual world that according to Zuckerberg represents the future of the Internet but has yet to seduce even his own employees.
Source: Clarin
