August von Finck junior

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August François von Finck (born March 11, 1930 in Munich ) is a German investor and former banker . He has lived in Switzerland since 1999 .

His net worth is estimated at around $ 8.2 billion. Due to his financial donations to the economically liberal parties FDP and CSU, von Finck came into the public eye in the run-up to the reduction in VAT on hotel stays. Finck has also financially supported German parties and movements such as the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD), the economically liberal citizens' convention and the right-wing populist Association of Free Citizens .

Life

The headquarters of the Merck Finck & Co bank in Munich, owned by August von Finck junior until 1990

August von Finck junior is the second of four sons of August von Finck senior , an early admirer of Hitler and profiteer of Aryanization during the Nazi era , whose private bank Merck Finck & Co in 1938 a. a. the Jewish banking house SM v. Rothschild could take over. August von Finck junior initially strived to manage the 4,000 hectares of the family's property from a professional point of view . Instead, his father got him trained as a banker. Finck joined the family-owned Munich bank Merck Finck & Co, of which he became a partner in 1973. After the death of his father in 1980, he became a member of the board of the then third-largest German private bank.

Holdings

Von Finck inherited from his father a. a. Participation in Münchner Löwenbräu (since 2004 Custodia Holding AG ). In 1990 he sold the Merck Finck & Co bank and then concentrated on stakes in Swiss companies. Since 1992 he has held the majority of shares in the Swiss restaurant and hotel group Mövenpick (main shareholder). Investments in the mechanical engineering company Von Roll , Alusuisse - Lonza , the armaments manufacturer Oerlikon-Bührle , the goods testing holding Société Générale de Surveillance (SGS SA in Geneva) and the refractories company RHI AG in Vienna followed. At the beginning of 2006, von Finck made headlines with an indirect stake of 25.1% in the German construction group Hochtief AG, Essen; this was sold again in March 2007. In 2007, the financier took over the Swiss technology group Von Roll completely and founded Bank von Roll . August von Finck junior also held shares in a fund consortium whose rent claims the Arcandor department store group was no longer able to service and therefore had to file for bankruptcy on June 9, 2009 . In 2011 he sold the shares in Sektkellerei J. Oppmann AG that his father had acquired in the 1930s .

Von Finck acquired the naming rights for the name of the Degussa Group in order to use it for his gold trading ( Degussa Goldhandel ). Degussa is a historically charged name, which Degussa supplied via subsidiary Zyklon B for the gas chambers of the extermination camps during the Nazi era . The dental gold that was broken out of the gassed Jews was still melted in Degussa's melting furnaces .

In recent years August von Finck has withdrawn more and more from active business. This was taken over by his sons August François von Finck and Luitpold Ferdinand von Finck.

Political commitment

Economic liberalism

Through Substantia AG (formerly VM Holding Aktiengesellschaft), a subsidiary of his Vercura Vermögensverwaltungs GmbH, von Finck donated a total of 1.1 million euros to the FDP in 2008 and 2009 . In September 2008, Clair Immobilien Deutschland GmbH (430,000 euros) and Mercator Verwaltung GmbH (390,000 euros) donated a total of 820,000 euros to the CSU , which primarily campaigned for the VAT reform. Von Finck had already donated to bourgeois, conservative and liberal parties in the past. He is considered to be one of the main beneficiaries of the VAT reduction for hotel accommodation, whereupon the FDP was ridiculed as the Mövenpick party.

Right-wing populism

Von Finck is considered a sponsor of the right-wing populist and in parts right-wing extremist party Alternative for Germany (AfD). On November 24, 2018, the news magazine Der Spiegel published its research with strong evidence that Finck played an important role in financing the AfD in its founding phase. According to Spiegel, he was involved in their lucrative “ AfD gold shop ” through Degussa Goldhandel .

Furthermore, von Finck became politically active through the indirect financing of the campaign against the introduction of the euro by the right-wing populist party Bund Freie Bürger around the former FDP politician Manfred Brunner . The social scientist Alexander Häusler from the research focus on right-wing extremism / neo-Nazism considered the Union of Free Citizens to be a kind of “right-wing forerunner party” of the AfD founded in 2013 with “striking similarities”, in particular with regard to personnel overlaps, political orientation and content-related demands. From 1999 the party appeared repeatedly in reports for the protection of the constitution, for example from the Ministry of the Interior in North Rhine-Westphalia, because of its contacts with right-wing extremism .

Von Finck financed Meinhard Miegel's citizens' convention with 6 million euros . According to a study by the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung , the Citizens' Convention saw itself as a non-partisan institution of citizens who want to transform the state society into a real civil society. An analysis by the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung's Department of Politics and Consulting to assess the alternative for Germany describes the Citizens' Convention as " apo from the right" and "from above", referring to the return of the state to core competencies and the dismantling of social benefits in favor of private provision aim.

capital

Weinfelden Castle , Thurgau in Switzerland , is owned by the von Finck family
Castle lakeside

In 2013, August von Finck junior ranks 10th in the Forbes ranking for Germany and 138th worldwide with an estimated fortune of around 8.2 billion US dollars . In 1999 Finck moved to Switzerland to Schloss Weinfelden in the canton of Thurgau . Another place of residence is Seeseiten Castle on Lake Starnberg, owned by his wife Francine. On the Forbes list of the richest people in the world, August von Finck was ranked 172nd with a fortune of approximately $ 7.7 billion in 2015.

family

From his marriage to Francine von Finck, b. Le Tanneux von Saint Paul , have four children, the sons August François (* 1968), Maximilian Rudolf (* 1969) and Luitpold Ferdinand (* 1971) and the daughter Maria Theresia von Finck (* 1975).

Helmut von Finck (* 1959), the youngest son from the second marriage of August von Finck senior, who died in 1980, is fighting in court against his two half-brothers August and Wilhelm († 2003) from his father's first marriage for a higher share of the inheritance, the amount in dispute is now over one billion euros is estimated.

See also: Finck (entrepreneurial family)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b August von Finck .
  2. ↑ a b c Robin Alexander: New Party: Financing Mövenpick billionaire AfD election campaign? In: welt.de . April 22, 2013, accessed November 26, 2018 .
  3. ↑ a b c Tomasz Konicz : AfD: The masks are falling. In: TELEPOLIS. September 14, 2017. Retrieved September 14, 2017 .
  4. ↑ Kai Arzheimer: The alternative for Germany. Program, development and political positioning. In: German Politics. 26, 2016, p. 334, doi : 10.1080 / 09644008.2016.1269499 .
  5. ↑ Alexander Häusler: The alternative for Germany: program, development and political location . Springer-Verlag, January 18, 2016, ISBN 978-3-658-10638-6 .
  6. ↑ Thomas Petersen: How anti-Semitic is Germany? In: FAZ.net . June 20, 2018, accessed November 25, 2018 .
  7. ↑ a b Hidden AfD support: trace leads to billionaire von Finck. In: woz.ch. November 23, 2018. Retrieved November 23, 2018 .
  8. ↑ a b Melanie Amann: Covert AfD support: trace leads to billionaire August von Finck. In: Spiegel Online . November 23, 2018. Retrieved November 23, 2018 .
  9. ↑ a b tagesschau.de: AfD support association: trace to Munich billionaire? In: tagesschau.de. November 23, 2018. Retrieved November 23, 2018 .
  10. ↑ a b c Tomasz Konicz : Fascism in the 21st Century (Telepolis): Sketches of threatening barbarism . Heise Medien GmbH & Co. KG, September 20, 2018, ISBN 978-3-95788-174-8 .
  11. ↑ Henry Ashby Turner (Ed.): Hitler from close range, Notes of a Confidante 1929–1932 , Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Vienna 1978, p. 372 ff.
  12. ^ Roman Sandgruber : Rothschild. Glory and decline of the Viennese world house. Molden Verlag, Vienna, 2018 ISBN 978-3-222-15024-1 .
  13. ↑ August von Finck , Who's Who, accessed March 27, 2009
  14. ^ Von Roll under new management , NZZ , August 14, 2007
  15. ↑ "Germany's money nobility benefited from Karstadt rents" , Spiegel Online , June 14, 2009
  16. ↑ Billionaire von Finck sells sparkling wine . In: Financial Times Deutschland, November 22, 2011
  17. ↑ The company history of Merck Finck & Co, Privatbankiers ( Memento from March 24, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 868 kB)
  18. ↑ Simone Boehringer: Recycling of the noble kind . November 11, 2011.
  19. ↑ Gold dealer Degussa wants to expand in Switzerland . April 5, 2013.
  20. ↑ Billionaire Finck pours a lot of money into the FDP's coffers , stern , June 17, 2009
  21. ↑ Thorsten Denkler: Finck: Party donations. When millions are worth it: The FDP and its clientele ( Memento of the original from January 21, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Süddeutsche Zeitung , January 18, 2010 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.sueddeutsche.de
  22. ^ Money for the FDP and CSU , n-tv, January 18, 2010
  23. ↑ Party donations over € 50,000 - year 2008 / September (PDF; 116 kB), German Bundestag, October 20, 2008
  24. ↑ Hans Leyendecker : "To the right of Gustl is only Genghis Khan" ( Memento of the original from January 21, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Süddeutsche Zeitung, January 18, 2010 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.sueddeutsche.de
  25. ^ Deutsche Welle (www.dw.com): Attack on the "Mövenpick Party". In: dw.com. January 19, 2010, accessed November 26, 2018 .
  26. ↑ Florian Gathmann: Debate about FDP donation: Mockery and ridicule for the "Mövenpick party". In: Spiegel Online . January 19, 2010, accessed November 26, 2018 .
  27. ↑ The billionaire and the AfD. How secret donations made the right-wing populists big , Der Spiegel issue 48/2018 of November 23, 2018 (accessed on November 24, 2018)
  28. ↑ August von Finck and the Right. The billionaire and the AfD , spiegel.de from November 23, 2018 (accessed November 24, 2018)
  29. ↑ August von Finck: Portrait of one of the richest Germans .
  30. ↑ Alexander Häusler , Rainer Roeser: The right ›courage‹ citizens. Origin, development, personnel and positions of the »Alternative for Germany« . VSA, Hamburg 2015, ISBN 978-3-89965-640-4 , pp. 28-32.
  31. ^ Florian Hartleb : Union of Free Citizens - Offensive for Germany. Die Freiheitlichen (BFB - Die Offensive) . In: Frank Decker, Viola Neu (Ed.): Handbook of German political parties . 2nd over Edition, Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2013, ISBN 978-3-658-00962-5 , p. 203.
  32. ↑ Thomas Leif: Advising & selling McKinsey & Co. The great bluff of management consultants . Munich 2006, p. 287.
  33. ↑ Christian Rickens: manager magazin: August von Finck financed advertising campaign for the association “Citizens' Convention” . ( Memento from February 2, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Website of the Spiegel Group, December 14, 2005.
  34. ^ Heinz Theisen: The future viability of the political center . Konrad Adenauer Foundation , May 2004.
  35. ↑ Dietmar Neuerer: Conservative, liberal, right - where is the AfD headed? In: Handelsblatt , June 28, 2013.
  36. ↑ Forbes : List of Billionaires
  37. ^ Von Finck dynasty: An unparalleled inheritance dispute , bilanz.ch dated December 30, 2015 , accessed on December 31, 2015
  38. ↑ Henning Peitsmeier: “Finck family of bankers. Nobility destroyed ” , FAZ , January 14, 2010
personal data
SURNAME Finck, August von junior
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Finck, August François von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German banker and entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH March 11, 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich