Margarita Louis-Dreyfus, the billionaire owner of the name-sake commodity trader, has received a huge loan from Credit Suisse last year. The strings attached are potentially delicate.
Credit Suisse, Switzerland’s second-largest bank, granted a $1.03 billion loan to Margarita Louis-Dreyfus last year, according to a report by «Bloomberg» (behind paywall). She used the money to buy a 16.6 percent stake in her commodity-trading firm from family members.
Strings Attached
The deal helped the heiress of late Robert Louis-Dreyfus to take full control over the Louis Dreyfus company, a trader of agricultural goods. She is now worth an estimated $5.5 billion. She is the only woman with a Swiss connection to make it onto the «Forbes» list of the 100 most powerful women.
The deal didn’t come cheap though, according to the fine print of the loan, said «Bloomberg»: Louis-Dreyfus pledged her controlling stake in the firm as security for the loan.
Famous Swiss Partner
Louis-Dreyfus, a Russian by birth, lives in Davos, the resort in the Swiss alps that plays host to the World Economic Forum. She is the partner of Philipp Hildebrand, vice-president of Blackrock and ex-president of the Swiss National Bank.
Hildebrand has been named in connection with a slew of top jobs in Swiss finance, among those as chairman of Credit Suisse, as successor of Urs Rohner.
