Epress.am News from Armenia
Pietro Ferrero, chief executive officer of the Ferrero group, maker of Nutella chocolate spread and Tic Tacs, and heir to Italy’s biggest fortune, died of a suspected heart attack in South Africa. He was 47.
Ferrero died while bicycling yesterday on a coastal road near Cape Town, during a break from a company meeting in South Africa. A passerby saw him fall off his bicycle, and he was declared dead of a suspected heart attack shortly after an ambulance arrived, Western Cape Police spokesman Captain FC van Wyk said in a telephone interview, Bloomberg reports.
Ferrero had co-run the sweets company with his younger brother Giovanni since 1997, AFP reports.
Their father Michele, 85, who turned the firm into a global leader of the confectionery industry after taking over in 1957, is still the chair — not to mention Italy’s richest man according to the latest ranking by Forbes magazine.
Pietro is survived by his wife and three children, newspaper la Repubblica said.