Margarita Louis-Dreyfus

Born Margarita Olegovna Bogdanova (Russian: Маргарита Олеговна Богданова) in Leningrad, she was raised by her grandfather, an electrical engineer, and studied law in Moscow and economics in Leningrad.

When her husband, Robert Louis-Dreyfus, died of leukemia on July 4, 2009, she became heiress to the Louis-Dreyfus group and at the same time a majority shareholder of Marseille, a football club her husband had owned since 1996.^[1] Her husband had integrated her into the management of the group in 2007, when he learned of the existence of his illness.^[2]

On 29 August 2016, Louis-Dreyfus and the Marseille mayor, Jean-Claude Gaudin, stated during a press conference with Frank McCourt that McCourt had agreed in principle to purchase the French Ligue 1 football club, Marseille, owned by Louis-Dreyfus. The purchase deal was completed for a reported price tag of 45 million euros on 17 October 2016.^[3][4][5]

In 1988, on a Zurich to London flight, she met Robert Louis-Dreyfus. They married in 1992 and had three sons, including Kyril who is the chairman and majority shareholder of English Premier League football club, Sunderland.^[6][7][8][9] Margarita, who had been working for a circuit-board equipment seller, became a full-time wife and mother.^[10] She took over as chairman of the Louis Dreyfus Group in 2009, following her husband's death from leukemia.^[11]

She is a Swiss citizen living in Zurich with her three sons, according to Forbes.^[11] Her partner was Philipp Hildebrand the former head of the Swiss central bank.^[12] She has twin daughters with him who were born in 2016.^[13] Margarita is the second cousin once removed (by marriage) of American actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus.^[14]

As of 2026, Forbes estimates her net worth at US$5.8 billion.^[11]