German court declares missing billionaire dead, 3 years after he disappeared without a trace

Photo: Wikipedia

A German court on Friday officially declared the German billionaire Karl-Erivan Haub who was last seen in April, 2018, dead

Karl-Erivan Haub, the head of retail group Tengelmann was training for a ski mountaineering competition when he disappeared under Switzerland’s famous Matterhorn peak, near Switzerland’s border with Italy. He was 58 at that time.

Haub was last seen in the morning of April 7, 2018, as he headed up a mountain lift with skis and a daypack, and was reported missing to police the following morning after he failed to return to his hotel in the Swiss resort of Zermatt, according to the report.

Karl-Erivan Haub was staying at a ski lodge near the Matterhorn mountain. Photo: Getty Images via Express.co.uk

Rescue workers and family gave up hope of finding him alive after a week and the search for him was officially called off in October 2018.

The district court in Cologne, where he lived, declared him dead on Friday, giving the time of his death as midnight on April 7, 2018. Haub was born on March 2, 1960 in Tacoma, Washington, and was a German-US dual citizen.

Karl-Erivan Haub went missing after skiing near the Klein Matterhorn, the highest peak in Europe accessible by cable car. Photo: Reuters via Thetimes

Haub’s brothers, company and wife had applied to have him officially declared dead. The court said it was satisfied with the evidence.

His younger brother, Christian Haub, was named CEO of the holding company Tengelmann, which the pair had jointly run for nearly 20 years.

Haub family’s net worth was $6.4 billion, according to Forbes billionaires index, before the businessman went missing. His 85-year-old billionaire father Ervian Haub died in March 2018.