| Capital: | € 500 million |
| Age: | 43 |
| Born: | 11/21/1976 |
| Country of origin: | Germany |
| Source of wealth: | Entrepreneurs |
| Last updated: | 2022 |
Short introduction
Lars Windhorst is an entrepreneur from Germany and co-founding father of the Sapinda Group. In 2015 his internet really well worth changed into expected at £ 320m. He based his first teenage corporation and filed for financial disaster in 2003 because of the dot-com bubble. The following year, Windhorst based the Sapinda organization. After the restructuring, Sapinda Holding BV, based in 2009, is the determine corporation of the organization. Windhorst is its non-government chairman.
In December 2007, rapidly after Christmas, Windhorst changed into critically injured in a aircraft crash in Kazakhstan. One of the pilots died while the Bombardier Challenger 604 ran into a wall, got here off the runway in Almaty and exploded.
Early life
At the age of 14, Windhorst, the son of a neighborhood stationery dealer, became the own circle of relatives storage in his domestic city of Rahden right into a makeshift laptop lab. He mobilized his classmates to assist him construct PCs that he later bought in his father’s store at the same time as seeking out providers of character additives in China.
He based his first corporation at college in 1993. Since he changed into a minor, his mother and father helped him control his operations through signing contracts on his behalf and riding him to work. Windhorst have become called one of the maximum a success younger marketers in Germany. As a baby prodigy, he and Bill Gates had been invited to tour to Asia with former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl as a part of the legit authorities delegation. On this trip, Windhorst made worldwide commercial enterprise contacts.
Career
In October 1993, Windhorst based his first corporation, the Chinese businessman Ming Rong Zhang, Windhorst Electronics GmbH. The sports of Windhorst Electronics GmbH to start with targeting the import and alternate of digital additives and laptop components from Asia in addition to the sale of IT merchandise during Germany and Europe. Just 12 months after the corporation changed into based, Windhorst Electronics done income of eighty million euros with a complete of eighty employees.
In 1995 Windhorst moved to Hong Kong and based a corporation to perform the organization in Asia. The Windhorst Group elevated its commercial enterprise as a buying and selling and funding corporation withinside the fields of electronics, industry, alternate, actual property and finance till 1996. The corporation had workplaces and workplaces in Europe and Asia, which include mainland China and Vietnam.
In 2000, Windhorst based Windhorst New Technologies AG with a focal point on investments withinside the regions of the Internet and new technologies. In 2002, Windhorst New Technologies AG changed into to be indexed at the Frankfurt inventory exchange. With the outbreak of the monetary disaster, the organization were given into problems and needed to report for financial disaster in 2003.
In 2004, Lars Windhorst co-based the Sapinda Investment Group, which coordinates financing with its subsidiary Anoa Capital to fund public, personal and start-up organizations. In round 5 years, Sapinda has made investments really well worth greater than 2 billion euros. During the worldwide monetary disaster, the organization and specifically the German Vatas Holding GmbH suffered vast losses. As a end result of the worldwide monetary disaster in 2008, the corporation commenced restructuring talks withinside the 2nd 1/2 of of the year. in January 2009, the companions needed to report for financial disaster with their German subsidiary, Vatas.
In April 2009 all commercial enterprise sports had been restructured and Sapinda Holding BV changed into based from the brand new determine corporation of the organization. The organization now has workplaces in numerous international locations and employs a group of greater than eighty humans worldwide. Sapinda Holding BV combines investments in agriculture and meals processing, mining / uncooked materials, oil and fueloline manufacturing and invests in public and personal organizations. It additionally has investments in technology, media and actual property. In February 2018, Sapinda received the luxurious emblem La Perla.
Career highlights
Lars Windhorst based Amatheon Agri collectively with Carl Heinrich Bruhn to permit Sapinda Holding BV to turn out to be worried withinside the African agricultural sector, consistent with the German information mag Der Spiegel. Windhorst stated in an interview that the Sapinda commercial enterprise prepared investments of round EUR 3.five billion among 2009 and 2012, which include loans for organizations consisting of Air Berlin and Infineon. Sapinda’s companions encompass Roland Berger, a control representative whose advisory board is headed through Hubertus von Grünberg, who’s additionally the chairman of the Swiss organization ABB Ltd. is.
Windhorst filed for financial disaster in summer time season 2007. According to a piece of writing withinside the German information mag Focus on September 3, 2007, the lawsuit filed through his not unusualplace creditor Ulrich Marseille changed into rejected through the Federal Court of Justice in August. because of this that that Windhorst’s money owed had been paid.
In 2009, the Berlin public prosecutor charged Windhorst with fraud, breach of accept as true with, embezzlement and numerous financial disaster crimes. Windhorst’s breach of accept as true with blanketed the switch of EUR 800,000 to one in every of his opportunity accounts. Prosecutors agreed to drop the fraud costs if he fined € 1 million, reimbursed his alleged victim, and admitted infidelity after a agreement of appeals. In a intending commenced on December 18, 2009, the intending changed into discontinued and the quantity repaid.