Holch Povlsen and his wife. His children vacationing in Sri Lanka. (Instagram)
Three of the four children of the 255th Forbes richest man in the world, died in the Easter morning bomb attacks in Sri Lanka that claimed the lives of over 300 including foreigners and injuring over 600.
A spokesperson for billionaire Holch Povlsen, 46, confirmed that three of businessman’s children died. Danish media reported that Povlsen was in Sri Lanka with his family on vacation.
A total of 39 foreigners from 11 counties died in the multiple attacks. Seven suicide bombers had taken part in the attacks, according to investigators.
Entire Sri Lankan families of Catholic devotees who attended church services have been wiped out. A father who lost three members of his family at Negombo church attack committed suicide yesterday by jumping into a train.
Povlsen, whose net worth is $7.9 billion, is the second-largest individual private landowner in the UK and Scotland’s largest private landowner. He owns the Bestseller clothing chain and is the biggest stakeholder in Asos.com, and had recently told how he plans to restore the Scottish Highlands and leave all of his land to his kids when he dies.
He and his wife own a dozen estates over more than 220,000 acres across Sutherland and the Grampian mountains, amounting to about one per cent of Scotland’s land. They have also acquired vast mountain areas in Romania to protect them from exploitation such as logging, resource extraction and urbanization.
His parents opened the family’s first store in 1975 in the small Danish town of Ringkobing and he took over at age 28 and is now the sole owner of Bestseller which sells apparel under 11 brand names, including Jack & Jones, Only and Vero Moda. Povlsen also has significant stakes in retailer ASOS, online grocery store Nemlig and payments company Klarna.
Bestseller has 2,700 stores in 70 countries and reported sales of $3.7 billion in 2018. The company has 17,000 employees. Polvsen also owns Berkertex House, a commercial property on Oxford Street in London, which he acquired in 2014 for £105 million.
Sri Lankan officials have blamed a small local group called National Thowheeth Jama’ath for the attacks. The SLTJ is a small group, based in the east of Sri Lanka, and has been involved in extremist rhetoric as well as being linked to acts of vandalism against Buddhist statues. Its name describes a movement for the unity of God, a favourite label adopted by Islamist militants and a key concept in conservative strands of Islam.
According to social media posts two people connected to the attacks were arrested for explosive offences earlier but were released due to pressure from a Muslim minister in the government.
The government had been warned at the beginning of this month about the attacks but no action had been taken. President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe are not in talking terms due to personal and political enmities and this is cited as a major reason for ignoring the advance warning.
Defence Secretary Hemasiri Fernando has said that the government did not expect an attack of this magnitude. “It was quite impossible to protect a large number of churches last Sunday despite receiving prior information to these attacks,” he told international media yesterday.
People are demanding the resignation of responsible officials and ministers on social media but owning responsibility for such catastrophic lapses is virtually unheard of in Sri Lanka.
