German Billionaire Left 'broken' By Financial Crisis Kills Himself

A German billionaire industrialist plagued by financial mayhem and ?struggling to ?rescue his business empire has killed ?himself, his family announced today.

Adolf Merckle, who was Germany's fifth richest man and the world's 98th richest, reportedly died on railway tracks close to his family villa in Blaubeuern, near Ulm in south-west Germany, after being struck by a train on Monday night.

In an emotional statement his family said the 74-year-old had been "broken" by the financial crisis.

"The desperate situation of his companies caused by the financial crisis and the uncertainties of the last few weeks along with his powerlessness to act, broke the passionate family entrepreneur and he ended his life," the statement said.

Merckle, whose companies employed 100,000 people across Europe, had been in the headlines frequently over the past weeks after he made wrong-way bets on shares in Volkswagen. His family lost hundreds of millions of euros, including ?400m (?200m) on Volkswagen shares alone. It is not known how much of his personal fortune, which was estimated at 12.8bn in March 2008 by Forbes, had been lost.

Merckle, whose companies included cement maker Heidelberger Cement, the pharmaceutical maker Ratiopharm and Phoenix, a drugs wholesaler, had been in talks with banks for weeks in the hope of renegotiating the loans.

Shares in all his companies dropped as the news of his death reached the markets.

According to reports in the German media, he left a suicide note in which he apologized to his family, but offered no concrete reasons or motives. Prosecutors said they did not believe anyone else was involved in his death.

A railway worker found the businessman's body on the track 300 meters from the family home, and his family confirmed the identity of the body. As a matter of course DNA tests would be carried out on his remains this next week, the police said.

Merckle was born in Dresden in 1934 into a family of entrepreneurs and built on the family fortune by developing his grandfather's chemical company into the country's largest pharmaceutical wholesaler. He also developed other arms of the family business empire, including a ski lift business. He trained as a lawyer but spent most of his working life as an investor. He was married to Ruth Holland, who was born into the Ulm cement dynasty Schwenk/Schleicher.

Like many German industrialists Merckle, who was a keen skier and mountain climber, kept a low profile and was little known to all but business insiders until the recent scandal to have hit his business empire. He had honorary doctorates from several German universities and was awarded the Order of the Federal Republic of Germany, First Class, in 2005.

Among the many properties he owned was a castle near Rostock in northern Germany which hosted the participants of the G8 Summit in the Baltic Sea resort of Heiligendamm in 2007.