外戚干政; Heineken

choi

Patricia Sellers, A Self-Made Heiress. Charlene de Carvalho was a stay-at-home mom with five kids and no business education when, at age 47, she inherited control of Heineken. She decided to take on the challenge. Here, for the first time, she opened up about her remarkable journey. Fortune Dec 22, 2014.
fortune.com/2014/12/03/heineken-charlene-de-carvalho-self-made-heiress/

My comment:
(a) The story was completely rewritten, in print, to put the spotlight on Charlene, rather than her husband (Michel, which is pronounced the same as “Michael”). Still the print article gives a feel of 外戚干政.

Here is the story that was later published online only (there is no need to read it, for I am not really interested in him though he may be the power behind the throne):
Patricia Sellers, The Mysterious Banker Behind the World’s Best-Known Beer. Fortune, Dec 17, 2014.
fortune.com/2014/12/17/heineken/
(b) "her father [Freddy], a visionary businessman who had transformed a modest Dutch brewery into the world’s third-largest brewer [now as well as in 1989, when Freddy stepped down as CEO and Heineken’s revenue was $9.3 billion]. * * * [Heineken's current CEO (since ) Jean-François] van Boxmeer has spent more than $28 billion on 49 acquisitions * * * Heineken still ranks as the world’s No 3 brewer, behind Anheuser-Busch InBev and SABMiller, but sales have nearly tripled. With $24.9 billion in 2013 revenue, the company has an enviable portfolio of premium brands such as Amstel, Dos Equis, Sol, and the eponymous green-bottled lager * * *the company, with a stock market capitalization around $43 billion, remain independent in a rapidly consolidating beer market.”

(c) "Until her father’s passing, Charlene had no money to her name except a single share of Heineken stock—then worth 25.60 euros, or $32—that her father had given her. Now, as his only child and the sole heir to the Heineken fortune, she was inheriting about 100 million shares * * * At age 60 [she was 47 when her father died; her husband, Michel de Carvalho, is ten years older], she is one of the world’s wealthiest women, worth some $11 billion. * * * Had Freddy’s only child been named Charles instead of Charlene, he probably would have been pushed into the family business. But the idea of taking a key role at Heineken was not mentioned to Charlene.”
(i) When Freddy died in 2002, why was his wife not given the company share?  The article did not explain. Judging from Dutch laws, Freddy apparently bequeathed the shares--all his shares--to Charlene. See
Book 4 Law of Succession, in Dutch Civil Code
www.dutchcivillaw.com/civilcodebook044.htm

The URL gives you Title 4.1 ("General provisions") of Book 4. In the left column of the Web page, click "Title 4.3 Intestate succession in the relation between the spouse and the children of the deceased," where Article 4:13.1 stipulates:
"The estate of a deceased person who has left behind as heirs a spouse and one or more children, will be divided and apportioned in accordance with the following paragraphs, unless the deceased has stated in his last will that the present Section will not apply at all. "

* intestate (adj; from Latin intestatus, from in- + testatus testate)
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intestate
(ii) Charles
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles
(section 1 Etymology; section 3 Derived feminine names: Charlene, among others)

choi

(d) “To understand Heineken and the woman who controls it, it helps to know a bit about the people who came before her. In 1864, Charlene’s great-grandfather, Gerard Adriaan Heineken, bought a small brewery, De Hooiberg, in Amsterdam and began brewing beer with a special yeast. Gerard had one son, Henry, who chaired Heineken for 23 years and lost family control of the company in 1942 when he sold shares to pay for taxes and brewery expansion. His son, Alfred, known as Freddy, started working at the brewer, carrying sacks of barley, at 18. In 1954, Freddy borrowed money and bought enough Heineken stock to regain family control. * * * he [Freddy] created Heineken’s green bottle”
(i) “Heineken Lager Beer was first brewed by Gerard Adriaan Heineken in 1873.”  Wikipedia
(ii) surnames
(A) Heineken. The Internet Surname Database, undated
www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Heineken
("Recorded in Europe in some four hundred surnames spelling forms since the medieval times, this name is a derivative of the pre 7th century German personal name 'Heim-ric,' meaning 'home rule'")
(B) The Portuguese surname Carvalho is from the Portuguese noun AND numerous place names [that is why the husband’s surname is “de Carvalho”], of the same spelling. Dictionary of American Family Names, by Oxford University Press.

carvalho (noun masculine): “oak”
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/carvalho

(e) “he [Freddy] preferred a simple life at home. Most evenings, Charlene and her parents would eat dinner on tray tables in the living room, in front of the TV.”

Go to images.google.com and you will know what a “tray table” is.

choi

(f) "The Heinekens had vacation homes, including a ski lodge in St Moritz, Switzerland, and they knew the Onassis and Agnelli families and Monaco’s Prince Rainier and Princess Grace, but they didn’t socialize a lot."
(i) St Moritz
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Moritz
(The town was named after Saint Maurice [Wikipedia: ‘born in AD 250 in Thebes, an ancient city in Egypt near the site of the Aswan Dam’], an early Christian saint from southern Egypt said to have been martyred in 3rd century Roman Switzerland while serving as leader of the Theban Legion)
(A) For pronunciation of the place name, see Saint Moritz
www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/saint-moritz
(B) Moritz
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moritz
(Moritz is the German equivalent of the name Maurice)
(C) Maurice (given name)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_(given_name)
("originates as a French name derived from the Latin * * * Mauritius, a saint of the Theban Legion (d. 287). Mauritius is otherwise attested as a given name of the Roman Empire period, in origin meaning 'one from Mauritania,' ie 'the Moor'")
(D) “Theban: is an adjective of Thebes, Egypt.
(E) Mauretania
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauretania
(also called Mauritania; Mauretania existed as a tribal kingdom of the Mauri people 3rd century BC - , then Roman province 44- , then Vandal conquest 430s- , then Roman reconquest 533- , Muslim conquest 698-now)
(ii) Giovanni Agnelli
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Agnelli
(1866 – 1945; 1899 he was part of the group of founding members of the Fabbrica Italiana di Automobili Torino [FIAT])

choi

(g) "Two days after they returned from their honeymoon in St Croix and Virgin Gorda, something happened that would alter Charlene’s life dramatically": Freddy Heineken, along with his chauffeur, was kidnapped. "Freddy later joked that he was tortured: 'They made me drink Carlsberg.'”
(i) Saint Croix, US Virgin Islands
n.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Croix,_U.S._Virgin_Islands
("he largest of the islands in the territory [which Denmark sold US in 1916], being 28 by 7 miles (45 by 11 km). However, the territory's capital, Charlotte Amalie, is located on Saint Thomas")
(ii) Virgin Gorda
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Gorda
(an island within British Virgin Islands; Christopher Columbus is said to have named the island "The Fat Virgin," because the island's profile on the horizon looks like a fat woman lying on her side)

* Spanish  English dictionary
gordo (adjective masculine): "fat"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gordo#Spanish
(iii) Freddy Heineken
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freddy_Heineken
(section 1.2 Kidnapping)
(iv) Carlsberg Group
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlsberg_Group

(h)
(i) The Fortune article has a side bar titled "All in the Family; How to pass o a company to the next generation."  Online the sidebar is not as distinct from the text as it should be. Online the text starts again in the paragraph that begins with the sentence: “Charlene had little desire to engage in the family business, but that hardly mattered when, in 1988, her father invited her to join the board of Heineken’s holding company.
(ii) "And they made clear that they were not fooling around. 'You have seen the sweet and docile side of Charlene. May I remind you that she is half her father,' Michel wrote to Heineken’s chairman. 'That is probably a side that you should leave dormant.'"
(A) This warning was issued soon after Charlene inherited the empire, to bare the teeth, as it were.
(B) This "half her father" refers to not just genetic material (chromosomes), but also personality traits (ruthless? determination?).