A bad investment, debt, divorce or unduly spending are just some of the reasons why these 6 wealthy families who lost their fortunes became famous. So, let’s see some interesting facts about the members of the families who have become rich and about the less popular ones who managed to spend it all.
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It seems easy to retain the inherited fortune, but apparently it isn’t. It was also not easy to compile a list, because the fortune was sometimes lost after two, three or even six generations, so the estimated net worth of certain family changed its value over the course of years. We decided to calculate the relative value of the money in one year to another in 2015, so we can see how much money the family inherited and how much money is lost. If you want to see which are 10 wealthiest families in the world today and compare their fortune to some of the wealthiest families in American history, be free to do so. Some of our many sources which we have used to compile this list of 6 wealthy families who lost their fortunes are: Forbes, Bankrate, The Atlantic, The Huffington Post, The New York Times, Daily Mail.
Here’s our list of 6 wealthy families who lost their fortune:
6. The Kluges
$30 million, Albemarle House Drive, Kluge Estate Winery, Vineyard Estates to $0 (divorce)
John Werner Kluge (1914-2010) was a famous media entrepreneur, once one of the richest people in America. John Kluge emigrated to the states in 1922. His purchased stocks in Metropolitan Broadcasting Corporation in 1950. He was the largest stockholder by 1958, and soon became the famous creator of Metromedia, media company who owned television and radio stations in the USA. Kluge managed to make his first billion by 1984. Just five years later, he was listed by Forbes as the richest man in the world in 1989, with the total fortune of $7 billion. Metromedia Fiber Networks filed for bankruptcy protection in 2002 (the company listed assets of $7 billion and debt of $5 billion).
He was married four times and divorced for three times. His third wife was Patricia (Rose) Kluge and after divorce she received $1 million a year and 200-acre estate and thus became popular as the wealthiest divorcee in history. But Patricia has filed for bankruptcy in 2011 when The Bank of America was the top bidder for her property (355 Albemarle House Drive and 960-acre winery). The real estate billionaire Donald Trump was rumored to buy the estate vineyard for $6.2 million. It was all over the news that Donald Trump has fired Patricia Kluge, shortly after she was appointed as the adviser to Donald Trump’s son. Eric Trump stated that her role was in the operations, but the company transitioned from the property owned by the bank to the property that they own.
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