Swiss billionaire Esther Grether dies

Death of Esther Grether, owner of the Doetsch Grether Group Keystone-SDA

Esther Grether has died aged 89. Considered one of Switzerland’s leading entrepreneurs, the owner of the Basel-based Doetsch Grether Group was also a major shareholder in the Swatch Group and an art collector.

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Esther Grether passed away peacefully, her family announced on Friday. In recent years, the billionaire, who held a 3.76% stake in the world’s number one watchmaker, had lived in seclusion in her house in Basel. Grether was a member of the Swatch Group board of directors from 1986 until 2014.

Following the death of her husband Hans Grether shortly before the age of 64, Esther Grether took over the management of the family business Doetsch Grether in 1975 as managing director, making her an exception in the business world of the time. She had started her career at the Rhineland firm as a secretary and then married her boss.

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The Doetsch Grether group, whose origins go back to the founding of a pharmacy in Basel in 1899, controls several well-known brands in the health and wellbeing sector, including Grether’s and Neo Angin pastilles and Ceylor condoms. After opening their pharmacy, Richard and Oscar Grether quickly expanded their business to include the wholesale of pharmaceutical and cosmetic products.

The group’s first in-house product, Fenjal bath cream, was launched in 1962 under the management of Hans Grether, who had taken over the company in 1947 following the untimely death of his father. Fenjal’s foreign distribution from 1963 onwards – it was sold in 2015 – marked the development of the company’s international activities.

Art collection

A mother of two, Grether ran the company for several decades, before gradually withdrawing from operations in 2014. But the company remains in family hands. According to business magazine Forbes, Esther Grether’s assets total almost CHF1.8 billion ($2.25 billion).

The entrepreneur also made a name for herself in the art world, with one of the most important private collections of the 20th century.

Parts of the collection have been exhibited several times at Basel’s Kunstmuseum, most recently in 2019, and include works by Pablo Picasso, Paul Cézanne, Salvador Dali and a triptych by Francis Bacon. Grether’s private collection is said to comprise no fewer than 600 works.

Translated from French by DeepL/ts

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