Maja Oeri, a descendant of Fritz Hoffman-La Roche, the founder of drug giant Roche, joins the 2013 world billionaire ranks with an estimated individual fortune of more than $1.6 billion.
Oeri, whose family has controlled Roche, maker of Tamiflu and Valium, for more than a century, is herself best known for her dedication to the art world. She is a trustee of the Museum of Modern Art and also runs the Emanuel Hoffman Foundation, which holds the family’s vast collection of art including Belgian Cubists and Surrealists collected by her grandfather, Emanuel, before he was killed in a car accident in his 30s.
She makes her debut thanks to a 2011 decision to pull her 5% stake in the bearer shares out of the family pool. While she reportedly said at the time that she had no falling out with her family, her decision reduced the family’s long majority control of Roche, making it more vulnerable to takeover. A tie up with competitor Novartis, which owns a third of Roche’s voting rights, was rumored at the time.
Other members of her family, 8 relatives in all, control, along with a nonprofit foundation, 45% of Roche worth $15.1 billion.
The Oeri-Hoffman family last appeared in the billionaire ranks in 2000 with a combined net worth of $11.5 billion. After that, they dropped out not because their fortune fell below the cut but because Forbes shifted our focus to individual wealth only.
Maja Oeri built her name and reputation in the contemporary art world where she changed the ways paintings were stored and preserved. In 2003, she opened a unique preservation space for precious artwork which she called, Schaulager, a name she coined from 'Schau' which is show in German and 'lager' means warehouse. Designed by the Swiss team Herzog & de Meuron, the concrete block located outside of Basel holds the enormous collection of the Emanuel Hoffman Foundation, founded in 1933 by her grandmother, Maja Hoffmann-Stehlin. The goal is to display to scholars and specialists works of art that would otherwise be wrapped and stored in the dark; typically only 10% of the collection is on exhibition at museums.
A fixture at Art Basel, Oeri in 2010 co-purchased with the MoMa the "Drawing Restraint" archive, Matthew Barney's epic chronicle that he began as an undergraduate at Yale in 1987 and is still adding to. (The archive includes video recordings of all of Mr. Barney's performances, along with drawings, sculptures, and objects made out of his signature materials of petroleum wax and self-lubricating plastic and encased in vitrines). In March, at her Schaulager space, a major exhibition of British visual artist, Steve McQueen will be staged.
Newcomer Billionaires Of 2012:
