Olav Thon, billionaire Norwegian real estate developer, dead at 101

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OSLO, Norway (AP) — Olav Thon, a billionaire entrepreneur recognizable for his bright red cap who went from selling leather and fox hides in his youth to build one of Norway's biggest real estate empires, has died, his company said Saturday. He was 101.

“It is with great sadness that we have today received the news that Olav Thon has passed away,” Olav Thon Gruppen said in a statement. The cause of death was not immediately specified.

Thon was born in the village of Ål in the Hallingdal Valley, northwest of Oslo, on June 29, 1923.

He had initially planned to study medicine, but World War II extinguished those hopes, and he instead turned to breeding animals for their fur at his home farm, according to Norwegian news agency NTB.

Thon eventually moved from selling leather into real estate and purchased his first apartment building in 1950.

From there, he built a group that today employs thousands of staffers and counts over 80 shopping centers in Norway and neighboring Sweden. It also owns some 90 hotels in those two countries as well as Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands, according to the company.

He transferred most assets of the company to the Olav Thon Foundation after it was created in 2013.

Thon was known for his penchant for the outdoors, and supported tourism and hiking activities in Norway. His philanthropy included support for medical research, notably in muscular-skeletal disorders.

After his longtime wife Inge-Johanne Thon died in 2018, he married again — aged 95 — the following year to Sissel Berdal Haga at the century-old Hotel Bristol in Oslo, which was his first hotel purchase, bought in 1974.