Real estate tycoon Karl Wlaschek in 2002 at the Palais Ferstel in Vienna with deceased wife Karin Wlaschek.
You can never be too old to find love, at least not for the fifth time. And at least not if you’re a billionaire.
This week, nonagenerian Austrian mogul Karl Wlaschek will wed his fifth bride, Rikki Schenk (who declines to give her age). Wlaschek made his $4.7 billion fortune by founding supermarket chain Billa and building a real estate empire.
So far, he has sired four children – one from each of his previous marriages — and has joked that he wants more. “I would say another five or six children, at the very least,” Wlaschek told the Vienna Times. His fiancée isn’t so sure, however. “After all, I am not so young any more,” she said. Both are widowed from their previous spouses.
By billionaire standards, Wlaschek is no outlier. American business magnate Ron Perelman has already racked up five wives at age 69, having recently remarried after an acrimonious divorce from his fourth spouse, actress Ellen Barkin, in 2006. Billionaires in the second-tier four-wives club include Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens, and Saudi royal Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, according to Forbes.