Iris Fontbona & family
Source of wealth: Mining
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Biography
Iris Fontbona is the widow of Andrónico Luksic, who built a fortune in mining and beverages before dying of cancer in 2005.
He left his businesses to Fontbona and his three sons: Jean-Paul, Andrónico and Guillermo Luksic (who died of lung cancer in 2013 at age 57).
Fontbona and her children control Antofagasta Plc, which owns copper mines in Chile and trades on the London Stock Exchange.
Fontbona and her children also own a majority stake in Quiñenco, a publicly-traded Chilean conglomerate active in banking, beer and manufacturing.
Jean-Paul Luksic is chairman of Antofagasta; Andrónico Luksic, who headed up Quiñenco since 2013, stepped down in December 2023.
Perspective on their fortune
Gold
Everyday luxury
A Iris Fontbona & family's fortune is equivalent to 334 of gold, but this may be difficult to value, as we don't usually have a handful of gold bars in our piggy bank.
A standard gold ring typically weighs between 4 and 7 grams. Let's say this one weighs 5 grams. It's usually 18k gold.
Based on today's gold price (not taking into account the jeweler's fee, shipping, or anything else), that gold ring would be worth $556.3
Iris Fontbona & family could buy 89,177,654 gold rings. That's a lot of fingers and a lot of gifts!!
And if the number of rings is difficult to visualize, all these rings would need 16 trucks to transport them, But we can be almost certain that Iris Fontbona & family will have enough left over to pay for the gas for those trucks.
Health
The price of life
Let's compare Iris Fontbona & family's fortune with the healthcare spending of a huge country
Iris Fontbona & family could fund the entire healthcare system of DR Congo with a population of over 105,800,000 of inhabitants for approximately 22.3 years.
But even if we compare their fortune to that of a rich country
At the other extreme, Iris Fontbona & family could cover the health expenditure of Luxembourg, considered the world's most heavily invested health system, for 9.9 years
Education
Buying the future
Lowest education spending
Iris Fontbona & family could assume the entire cost of the education system of Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, with more than 243,000,000 inhabitants for 14.6 years.
Highest education spending
But not only could he assume the cost of a poor country, Luxembourg is considered the country with the highest per capita investment in education in the world, Iris Fontbona & family could pay for it in full for 19.8 years.
Research
The monopoly of progress
Lowest research spending
Iris Fontbona & family could fully fund the state research budget of Pakistan, the fifth most populous country in the world with more than 260,000,000 of inhabitants, for 83.5 years.
Highest research spending
But even if we compare the total wealth of Iris Fontbona & family with Israel, the country that currently invests the most per capita in research in the world, it could assume the total cost of the system for 1.9 years.
Financial Assets
Monthly wealth history
Fortune comparison
Historical data not available for comparison