Adolf Merkle, who was recently named by Forbes as the 94th richest man in the world, committed suicide Monday by throwing himself in front of a train. Merkle owned HeidelbergCement, the fourth largest cement company in the world as well as generic drug maker Ratiopharm.
HeidelbergCement had been drowning in debt after its purchase of Hanson Plc for $16 billion at the top of the market in May of 2007. In addition, he shorted Volkswagen shares with company capital in a mistake that helped create the largest short squeeze in history. You may recall that for one day in late October the market capitalization of Volkswagen actually surpassed that of ExxonMobil, which by market cap is the largest company in the world. That mistake cost Merkle hundreds of millions of dollars.
Merkle had petitioned the government for a bailout, but his petition was denied. He was in the process of negotiating a multi-billion dollar loan deal with several different banks at the time of his death. According to CNN, his family said that the financial crisis had “broken” Merkle.
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