| Registered User
Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Sacramento, CA
Posts: 866
| » 
Athina Roussel turns 18, inherits 2.7 billion
Suddenly on the other side of the Joe Millionaire coin, I have 2.7 billion reasons why this gal looks more attractive to me.
--
GENEVA (Jan. 29) - Athina Roussel, the last direct descendant of the late Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, became one of the world's richest women Wednesday, inheriting part of a multi-billion-dollar fortune on her 18th birthday.
The tycoon's sole grandchild and heir, who spent the day in private with her family, is not expected to change a lifestyle devoted to studies and riding, said family lawyer Marc Bonnant.
Athina was believed to be in Switzerland with her French father Thierry Roussel, a pharmaceutical heir, Swedish stepmother Marianne "Gaby" Landhage, half-brother Erik and half-sisters Sandrine and Johanna.
She was not spotted in visits by Reuters to either of the family homes in the villages of Lussy-sur-Morges and Gingins, in French-speaking western Switzerland where she was raised. The family also owns a chalet at the luxury resort of St. Moritz.
"She is celebrating her 18th birthday like anyone would, with happiness and enthusiasm. The only difference is in the legacy she is inheriting," Bonnant told Reuters.
"There will be a private celebration," he added, declining to reveal her whereabouts.
Athina has come into an estimated $2.7 billion in properties including the lush island of Skorpios in the Ionian Sea, companies, shares, artwork and a private jet. At 21, she will become president of the Athens-based Onassis Foundation and receive another $2 billion.
"I don't think her life will change much. It has been her father's wish that she lead a normal life. He is afraid of myths and the tragedy they end in," Bonnant added.
The fortune will make her richer than Britain's Queen Elizabeth, but rather less affluent than the Walton heiresses Alice and Helen, descendants of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, who Forbes says are worth $18.5 billion.
PASSION FOR HORSES
Athina was three years old when her mother died in Argentina in 1988, allegedly after overdosing on diet pills. Christina, overweight most of her 37 years, had fought eating disorders, drug abuse and depression while reeling from one failed marriage to another.
Christina's brother Alexander, groomed to take over the family empire, died aged 25, in a freak plane crash in 1973.
A shattered Aristotle Onassis, who in 1969 ended a nine-year affair with opera diva Maria Callas to marry Jacqueline Kennedy, widow of the assassinated U.S. president, died two years later.
Athina was reportedly informed of her mother's death by a nurse at the Boislande estate in Gingins. Christina and Roussel, her fourth husband and French pharmaceutical heir, had divorced a year earlier.
The nurse, in an interview with Vanity Fair magazine in 1997, recalled that Christina had dressed her daughter in Dior children's clothes. When the toddler had expressed an interest in the nursery rhyme "Baa-Baa Black Sheep," she bought her a flock of sheep -- complete with a shepherd.
Athina, who attended Swiss state schools with her siblings, developed a passion for horseback riding, as perhaps befits a woman named after the ancient Greek goddess of prudent warfare and the symbol of wisdom.
"Athina was always discreet, simple, polite" her local riding instructor Pierre Badoux told the Lausanne daily Le Matin. "Two bodyguards always accompanied her."
"I always had the impression that her riding classes were a tribulation. She is a good rider, but I think her half-sister (Sandrine) is better," he added.
Athina, who is tall and has her mother's dark eyes, currently spends a lot of time in Belgium where she is training in the hopes of being part of Greece's Olympic equestrian team in 2004.
In Brussels, she met and reportedly fell in love with Alvaro de Miranda Neto, a 29-year-old Olympics showjumping medalist.
"She acts like most young people, pursuing academic studies and her interests in sport," Bonnant said.
01/29/03 12:02 ET
|
CC.
Linear Mode
