Austrian billionaire Karl Wlaschek, who once made a living as a jazz pianist, before amassing a fortune in retail and later real estate, died on May 31 at the age of 97. He was the world's third oldest billionaire.
His death comes less than two weeks before David Rockefeller, the world’s oldest billionaire, turns 100 on June 12. Only Rockefeller and Kirk Kerkorian, who will turn 98 later this month,, were older. There are still 35 billionaires around the world who are age 90 and older (shopping mall tycoon, Alfred Taubman, died at age 91 in April). Altogether there are over 200 who are at least 80.
Musically inclined -- his grandmother taught the zither (Austrian harp) and his grandfather was a pub singer – he worked as a jazz pianist and a singer known as Charly Walker after World War 1. He amassed his first fortune in retail, opening up a discount cosmetics store in Vienna in 1953. He went on to create Austrian retail chain Billa, which he sold for roughly $1 billion in 1996 to German REWE Group. He spent nearly two decades after that investing in prime Austrian real estate. He became one of the largest private real estate owners in Austria, via his KWPS Immobilien GmbH, with about 250 properties, including 10 hotels and 8 palaces and historic buildings in the center of Vienna.
He married for the fifth time in April 2012, at age 95, to a woman thirty years his junior. He had built a mausoleum on the grounds of one his palaces, the Palais Kinsky, where he hoped to be buried, and published a memoir, "Karl Wlaschek: A Success Story."
