Paul Fentener van Vlissingen

Paul Fentener van Vlissingen (21 March 1941 in Utrecht – 21 August 2006 in Langbroek) was a Dutch businessman and philanthropist who was CEO of SHV Holdings for three decades. He contributed to the development of game reserves in Africa and purchased the Letterewe estate in Scotland in 1978. He pledged the right to roam there prior to the passage of the Scottish Land Reform Act of 2003. Early life and background Paul Fentener van Vlissingen was the youngest son of Frits Fentener van Vlissingen II. The van Vlissingen family was a leading Dutch industrialist family whose fortune was based on shipping coal on the Rhine in the 19th century. Paul's father, described as one of the "fathers of the Dutch economy", had co-founded SHV Holdings through a merger with eight other Dutch trading families in 1896 and later bought out most of the other families. Originally Europe's largest coal wholesaling business, SHV is the largest privately owned company in the Netherlands. Career at SHV Holdings Paul inherited a significant shareholding in the company SHV Holdings from his father and studied economics at the University of Groningen before joining SHV. In May 1974, he joined the SHV board and he succeeded his brother, Frits III, as chairman in 1980. Paul led SHV as chief executive officer for three decades from the mid-1960s. Under his leadership the company diversified into new areas ahead of the collapse of the coal market in the 1960s. The areas he became involved with included retail, through the Makro and Otto Reichelt chains of grocery supermarkets and cash & carries, and energy, through the acquisitions of liquified petroleum gas companies including Calor Gas in the UK and Primagaz in France. He also diversified into scrap metal, recycling, oil exploration, renewable energy and private equity. In 1995 he stepped down and then served as non-executive chairman.