The net worth of Friede Springer, a German heiress, is $3.7 billion.
She became one of the billionaires after she inherited most of the media empire Axel Springer Verlag from her husband, Axel Springer, who founded the company in 1946.
Axel’s fifth wife secured his affections when she was employed as a caretaker for his two offspring.
Axel and Friede got married in 1978, despite Axel being 30 years older than her at the time.
She joined the company shortly after marrying him and took over the company’s ownership after his death in 1985, which now produces newspapers in 44 countries.
Die Welt, the leading conservative daily in Germany, and Bild Zeitung, the biggest tabloid in the country, are among the company’s assets. In the USA, Axel Springer Verlag publishes the foreign language editions of Forbes magazine in Poland and Russia.
The company’s revenues surged by 4% to $4.2 billion in 2012, with 35% of them being derived from digital media.
Due to her ownership of 53.35% of the company, Friede Springer’s net worth increased by $1.2 billion in the previous year, driven by dividends paid to shareholders.
In addition to being the primary operator of the media corporation following her spouse’s demise, she is also involved in various charitable ventures and has been recognized with various awards for her efforts to revive relations between Germany and Israel.
Springer is also awarded the Federal Cross of Merit for her efforts in fostering social, cultural, and scientific dialogue on a global scale.
In terms of politics, she belongs to Germany’s conservative Christian Democratic Union and has become a close friend of Chancellor Angela Merkel.