Stefan Quandt, deputy chairman of the BMW supervisory board, is ranked No. 75 on the Forbes 2026 World’s Billionaires list, tied with Reinhold Würth, with a net worth of $30.1 billion. He is BMW’s largest single shareholder.
Stefan Quandt was born on May 9, 1966, in Bad Homburg, Germany, to the industrialist Herbert Quandt and Johanna Quandt. Wikipedia describes his father as a prominent Nazi. He studied economics and engineering at the University of Karlsruhe from 1987 to 1993.
Net Worth and Rank
- Forbes 2026 list: No. 75 (tied with Reinhold Würth), with $30.1 billion
- Earlier estimate: Wikipedia says Forbes estimated $21.6 billion in December 2024
The BMW Stake
- The rescue: his father saved BMW from bankruptcy in 1959
- 1982: when his father died, Stefan inherited 17.4% of BMW and later raised it to 23.7% through further purchases
- 1997: he joined BMW’s supervisory board; he is now its deputy chairman
- 2015–2018: after his mother’s death in 2015 his voting stake temporarily rose to 34.19%, above the 30% level that triggers a mandatory takeover offer, and he asked the German regulator BaFin to be excused from the rule; in 2018 he became BMW’s largest single shareholder with a blocking stake of 25.83%, worth €13.4 billion
Delton and Other Holdings
Quandt also inherited holdings in other companies, which he has run through his holding company Delton AG since 1989, including 76.8% of the power-supply maker CEAG, 87.6% of the logistics company Logwin and 100% of the homeopathic remedies maker Heel. He also worked at the Boston Consulting Group in Munich in 1993–94 and as a marketing manager for Datacard in Hong Kong from 1994 to 1996.
Family
His sister is Susanne Klatten, also a major BMW shareholder.
Why It Matters
BMW is one of Germany’s largest carmakers, and the Quandt family’s long-standing control is the foundation of its wealth.
Net worth figures change daily with share prices. Rankings here follow the Forbes 2026 World’s Billionaires list, with wealth measured on March 1, 2026.
Image: The BMW headquarters in Munich (file photo, 2017; Stefan Quandt is not pictured). Photo: Tamer.Aburabah / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
