What is Maria Franca Fissolo's Net Worth?
Maria Franca Fissolo is an Italian businesswoman who has a net worth of $2 billion. Maria Franca Fissolo is the widow of Michele Ferrero who owned chocolate manufacturer Ferraro SpA which is Europe's second largest confectionery company. Ferrero passed away in February 2015. Ferrero SpA includes brands such as Nutella, Ferrero Rocher, Mon Cheri, Kinder Chocolate, Kinder Eggs, and Tic Tacs. Maria and Michele had two sons together named Pietro and Giovanni who were made co-CEOs in 1987. Pietro passed away in 2011 in a bicycle training ride. Giovanni now leads Ferraro SpA, which has more than 70 affiliated companies, with 15 production plants and 22,000 employees worldwide. For every 100 hazelnuts grown on earth, 15 of them will end up in a Ferrero product.
Despite its size, the company and its owners are known for being very secretive and private people. They are so private in fact, they are rarely seen in public. Ferrero's father Pietro started out during World War II setting up a lab to supply his wife's pastry shop and he created the spread Nutella due to rationed cocoa the region's plentiful supply of hazelnuts. With a few minor adjustments, Pietro would eventually go on to perfect the product we now know as Nutella. The early iterations had a texture and substance more like a loaf of bread, instead of what you would expect for something that today is often spread on that bread. Eventually, Pietro was able to manipulate the formula sufficiently to give his product a creamier texture. Today the company generates over $11 billion per year in revenue. When David Rockefeller died at the age of 101 on March 20, 2017, Maria Franca Fissolo became the oldest billionaire in the world at 99.
