THE WORLD'S RICHEST WOMEN: THE BILLIONAIRES

Photos from L to R: #1. Marilyn Carlson Nelson. #2. Maria Aramburuzabala. #3. Miuccia Prada.

#1. Marilyn Carlson. She owns and runs one of the biggest privately held companies in America, Carlson Companies, which she took over as CEO and chairman when when her father, Curt Carlson passed away in 1999. Marilyn Carlson, 61, and her sister Barbara Carlson Gage each own half of the $31 billion (2000 sales) company.  #2.  Maria Aramburuzabala's whose professional life resembles that of the late Katharine Graham, once upon a time, one of the most powerful women in America and who owned The Washington Post. Just like Graham, when Aramburuzabala's father passed away, nobody in the industry believed that she could run the beer business inherited from her family.  She told the Wall Street Journal in October, "It's important to me not to feel like a useless woman who inherited money."  Short after she took over, she turned around Modelo, the beer family business into one of the world's most successful companies.  Later on, in 2000 she made a daring move into broadcasting and television, outmaneuvering a arch-rival for control of Grupo Televisa. She inherited a successful company--Corona beer has 60% share in Mexico and is the best-selling Mexican beer stateside--from her father but she's expanding into new areas. Now she's using her sizable fortune to bring Latin America up to speed technologically, investing in data centers and building high-speed networks in Mexico City. She meets with American tech executives and pours money into companies doing business benefiting Latin America.

#3. Miuccia Prada inherited her grandfather Mario's luxury goods business in 1978, but remember that, at the time, the business consisted of just one store in Milan. And the store didn't sell ultra-trendy clothing or shoes--as it does today--but luggage. Within five years of taking over, Prada designed and started selling a line of shoes, and five years after that she launched a line of clothing. With the help of her famously hard-charging husband, Chief Executive Patrizio Bertelli, sales at Prada exploded from $50 million in 1990 to $1.5 billion in 2000. Prada isn't finished expanding. In December 2001, after three years and many millions of dollars, the company opened an enormous state-of-the-art retail store on a coveted corner in Manhattan's Soho neighborhood. But that's part of the problem. Retail expansion and acquisitions have resulted in an uncomfortable debt load of more than $500 million. The company had planned to sell its shares to the public last year, which would have eliminated debt and funded further expansion. But the economy and aftereffects of Sept. 11 have shelved the IPO plan indefinitely. Bertelli has reportedly acknowledged the need to restructure Prada's debt but insists they can do it without taking on an outside partner. That's the legendary Prada.

 

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