Nutella

Nutella

Pietro Ferrero, heir to Italy's biggest fortune, has died in South Africa after suffering a heart attack while riding a bicycle. He was 47.
Ferrero was chairman and co-chief executive officer of the Alba, Italy-based eponymous maker of the Nutella hazelnut spread, Tic Tacs and myriad chocolate products that has more than 6.6 billion euros in sales during the fiscal year ending in August 2010.

News reports said he was in South Africa on business.

Ferrero was joint CEO with his brother Giovanni of the company with almost 22 thousand employees worldwide.

“Italy has lost a businessman who embodied the best qualities of our industrial history - the continual search for excellence, creativity, the determination to compete even in difficult moments to defend a brand and make it a symbol,” Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said in a statement.

His father, Michele Ferrero, oversaw that company that made the Ferreros a billionaire family, now Italy's richest. Forbes Magazine ranked him Italy's wealthiest individual, valuing his fortune at 17 billion dollars.

Nutella