Billionaire revealed in NH as perfume maker’s stock debuts

A fifth billionaire has been unmasked in the German family behind perfume maker Coty Inc., which debuted on the New York Stock Exchange Thursday. And she lives in New Hampshire.

Andrea Reimann-Ciardelli, 56, sold her stake in Joh. A. Benckiser, the Reimann family’s closely held investment company, in 2003 for almost $1 billion, according to a person familiar with the terms of the deal who asked not to be identified because the transaction was private. She has a fortune valued at $1.2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Reimann-Ciardelli resides in Hanover, N.H. Her four adopted siblings — Renate Reimann-Haas, 61, Wolfgang Reimann, 61, Stefan Reimann-Andersen, 49, and Matthias Reimann-Andersen, 48 — each owns 24 percent of JAB, which is led by a trio of outside executives. Their stakes are collectively worth about $19 billion, according to the ranking.

“The Reimanns like to work outside the public eye,” said Dr. Andreas von der Gathen, partner at Bonn, Germany-based management consulting firm Simon-Kucher & Partners, who’s advised Coty. “The more secret, the less trouble.”

Elke Neujahr, a spokeswoman for the Reimanns, declined to comment on the family’s net worth calculations.

Coty, maker of perfumes endorsed by Beyonce and Heidi Klum, raised about $1 billion in an initial public offering Wednesday, pricing the shares at the midpoint of the proposed range. The company’s owners, including the Reimann family, sold 57.1 million shares for $17.50 each, according to a statement, after offering them for $16.50 to $18.50 apiece.

The Reimann family has been expanding its interests in consumer goods and has spent $11 billion in the past 12 months acquiring three coffee businesses, including D.E Master Blenders 1753 NV for $9.8 billion. The company withdrew its $10 billion bid for door-to-door cosmetics seller Avon Products Inc. in May 2012.

The four billionaires have been consolidating their control of the company since the 1984 death of their father, Albert Reimann, who had nine adopted children, each of whom inherited 11.1 percent of JAB. In 1996, they bought out four siblings their father had adopted from his sister, Else Dubbers. Seven years later, they financed the purchase of Reimann-Ciardelli’s stake by selling 60 million shares of publicly traded Reckitt Benckiser Group Plc.

The Reimanns still own more than 10 percent of Reckitt Benckiser, the Slough, England-based manufacturer of Durex condoms and Nurofen painkillers. They also own all of Labelux Group, which operates luxury retail brands Bally and Jimmy Choo, and Coty, which they bought in 1992 for about $440 million from New York-based Pfizer, the world’s largest drugmaker.

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