Pietro Ferrero, co-chairman of Ferrero Spa, died after fainting and falling from his bike during a training ride in South Africa. He was 47. Ferrero had accompanied a group of company employees to open a new factory in Johannesburg.
Ferrero ran the company with his brother, Giovanni, for many years. Among the company's products are Nutella, Kinder candy products, Tic Tacs, Ferrero Rocher, and other sweets worldwide. His father, Michele, remains the richest man in Italy.
Over the course of the last fiscal year, the company reported sales of 6.6 billion euros. The Ferrero company was founded in the late 1940s and has remained in the family's control.
“Italy has lost a great entrepreneur who embodied the best qualities of our industrial history,” Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini said in a statement.
Photo by Robert_A_Dickinson
