Léopold Louis-Dreyfus facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Léopold Louis-Dreyfus
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Léopold Dreyfus
5 March 1833 Sierentz, France
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| Died | 9 April 1915 (aged 82) Paris, France
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| Citizenship | French |
| Occupation | Commodity trader; diplomat |
| Spouse(s) | Émilie Lang |
| Children | Louis Louis-Dreyfus Charles Louis-Dreyfus Robert Louis-Dreyfus |
| Relatives | Pierre Louis-Dreyfus (grandson) Gérard Louis-Dreyfus (great-grandson) Robert Louis-Dreyfus (great-grandson) Julia Louis-Dreyfus (great-great-granddaughter) |
Léopold Louis-Dreyfus (born March 5, 1833 – died April 9, 1915) was a smart French businessman. He started the Louis Dreyfus Group, a very big company. He was also the main leader of the Louis-Dreyfus family.
France gave him a special award called the Commander of the Legion of Honour in 1912. It's one of the highest honors in France.
Contents
Early Life and Family
Léopold Dreyfus was born in a town called Sierentz in France. His family was Jewish. His dad, Louis Lemlé Dreyfus, was a farmer.
Starting a Business
When Léopold was young, he often traveled to Basel to sell grain from his family's farm. In 1851, he started trading wheat from other farms nearby. He was too young to use his own name for a company. So, he started a business using his father's name.
Later, Léopold changed his own last name to Louis-Dreyfus. But he kept the company name without the hyphen.
Growing the Company
In 1858, his company grew very fast. He moved it to Bern, where it started buying grain from Eastern Europe. This grain was then sent to places in Western Europe that needed food.
In 1864, the company moved again to Zurich. After the Franco-Prussian War in 1872, France gave up the region of Alsace to Germany. Léopold chose to remain a French citizen. He then moved his company's main office to Paris by 1875.
Smart Trading Methods
New ways to travel, like the transcontinental railroad, and better ways to get information, like the telegraph and telephone, helped the Louis Dreyfus Group grow a lot. They used a method called arbitrage. This means they made money by buying grain where it was cheap and selling it where it was more expensive.
In 1883, the Louis Dreyfus Group was one of the first companies to use "futures trading." This allowed them to agree to buy or sell goods at a set price in the future. By 1900, the Louis Dreyfus Group was the biggest grain trading company in the world.
Expanding Around the World
In 1905, Léopold started a bank called Banque Louis-Dreyfus. This bank helped fund the company's grain trading. The company then grew even more around the world.
- In 1909, they opened an office in Duluth, Minnesota in the United States. They started selling durum wheat from there.
- In 1911, they began trading cotton in Brazil.
- In 1913, they set up business in Melbourne, Australia.
Léopold Louis-Dreyfus died in 1915. His sons, Louis and Charles, took over the family business.
Personal Life and Legacy
In 1860, Léopold Louis-Dreyfus married Émilie Lang. They had three sons: Louis Louis-Dreyfus, Charles Louis-Dreyfus, and Robert Louis-Dreyfus.
By the early 1900s, the Louis-Dreyfus family was known as one of the richest families in France. Léopold also worked as a Consul-General for the Kingdom of Romania in Paris.
After Léopold died, his sons Louis and Charles continued to grow the Louis Dreyfus Group. They expanded it in the Americas and in Russia. Today, the Louis Dreyfus Group is one of the "big four" global food trading companies. It competes with other huge companies like Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge Limited, and Cargill Inc..
