Iris Fontbona (Chile)
The Chilean billionaire and her family are among the five richest families in Latin America. The entrepreneur inherited her fortune after the death of her husband in 2005. Iris is the widow of Adronjo Luksic, who controlled two large businesses. The first is Antofagasta Plc, which mines copper and gold. The second is Quiñenco, a Chilean conglomerate active in banking and energy.
Iris used part of her fortune to purchase a major share of the television channel. She also owns a chain of luxury hotels in Croatia. Fontbonne sometimes makes significant charitable contributions.
The richest Chilean woman is successfully developing her late husband's business. Under her leadership, companies began to operate on a completely new scale. She turned them into the largest copper mines, the largest shipping company and the second largest bank in Chile. Of course, Iris Fontbona is not only an heiress, but also a skilled manager.
As we can see, the richest women in the world in most cases inherited their wealth. But they managed it very successfully, preserving and increasing the savings of their relatives.
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Alice Walton (USA)
Alice Walton, with her $46 billion, ranks second in the ranking of the richest women on Earth. And she is also an heiress - the family owns the largest retail chain in the United States, Walmart.
Alice is the youngest child and only daughter of Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart. While her brothers were interested in their father's business, Alice became interested in art. She has amassed a personal collection of works worth several million dollars and strives to promote art to the masses. In 2011, she opened the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. And she even opened an investment bank in the 1980s. However, it soon had to be closed.
Alice loves nature and has several ranches with large areas where she raises horses. She doesn't like to appear in the press. There have already been several scandals involving her name in the media. The first was a car accident in the 1980s that resulted in the death of a pedestrian. Despite the fact that Alice was driving drunk, the judges imposed only financial sanctions on her, which are insignificant for a woman of such income.
The Walton family is also often criticized for the poor conditions for Walmart employees. America's largest business pays workers so little that many are forced to seek additional government assistance and can't afford rent. There have been numerous protests and strikes in recent years. As a result, Walmart slightly increased its minimum wage. However, the largest employer in the country was not going to lose billions of dollars by providing decent wages to all its employees. Instead, they tried to cut costs by exploring online retail models.
In general, many people accuse the Waltons of obtaining their wealth through direct exploitation of their subordinates.
