Alfred Léonard Loewenstein (11 March 1877 – 4 July 1928) was a Belgian financier. At his peak in the 1920s, Loewenstein was worth around £12 million in the currency of the time (equivalent to £ million in ), making him the third-richest person in the world at the time. His wealth came from investments in electric power and artificial silk businesses when those industries were in their infancy. Loewenstein is remembered today for his mysterious disappearance and death in 1928.
Early life and business career
Alfred Loewenstein was born in Brussels, Belgium, to Bernard Loewenstein, a German-Jewish banker who converted to Catholicism, and the daughter of Brussels stockbroker Chrétien Dansaert, a Catholic. Alfred established his own banking concern, and was a wealthy man by 1914. In World War I, Loewenstein offered the Belgian government at Sainte-Adresse US$50 million, interest-free, to stabilize the Belgian currency in return for the right to print Belgian francs. The offer was refused. At war's end, he maintained a residence in England where he ran an investment business that made him one of Europe's most powerful financiers. He partnered with the investment house of Canadian-born Sir James Dunn in several business ventures, the duo emerging with more than £1,000,000 profit from their 1920s investment in British Celanese alone.
Loewenstein was an owner of a successful stable of thoroughbred steeplechase race horses. His horses won the 1926 and 1928 runnings of the Grand Steeple-Chase de Paris.
Business successes
Loewenstein made an enormous fortune providing electric power facilities for developing countries worldwide through his Belgian-based company, Société Internationale d'Énergie Hydro-Électrique (SIDRO). By the mid-1920s, Loewenstein's reputation was such that he was consulted by heads of state from around the globe. The British government made Loewenstein a Companion of The Most Honourable Order of the Bath.
In 1926, Loewenstein established "International Holdings and Investments Limited", which raised huge amounts of capital from wealthy investors wishing to get aboard his bandwagon of success.
In 1926, he bought Villa Sacchino, a sumptuous house in Biarritz, in the French Basque Country, with a view on the Bay of Biscay and the Atlantic Ocean.
Disappearance
On the evening of 4 July 1928, Loewenstein left from Croydon Airport to fly to Brussels on his private aircraft, a Fokker F.VIIa/3m trimotor (G-EBYI), along with six other people. According to those on board, while the aircraft was crossing the English Channel at an altitude of , Loewenstein went to the rear of the aircraft to use the lavatory. In Loewenstein's aircraft, a door at the rear of the main passenger cabin opened on to a short passage with two doors: the one on the right led to the lavatory, while the one on the left was the aircraft's entrance door.
When Loewenstein had not reappeared after some time, his secretary went in search of him and discovered that the lavatory was empty, while the aircraft's entrance door was open and flapping in the slipstream. The employee (along with the others on the aircraft) asserted his belief that Loewenstein had fallen through the aircraft's rear door and plunged several thousand feet to his death in the English Channel. The aircraft landed first on the beach, before transferring to the airfield at Saint-Inglevert, Pas-de-Calais, France.
News and investigation
News of Loewenstein's demise caused panic selling in his corporations' publicly traded shares, which immediately plummeted in value by more than fifty percent.
On 12 July 1928, it was reported that tests had been conducted by the Accidents Branch of the British Air Ministry using Loewenstein's aircraft. It was stated that at an altitude of one of the Ministry men had thrown himself against the aircraft's entry door, which had opened about . However, he was immediately thrown back into the aircraft when the slipstream violently slammed the door shut. It was concluded that it would have been impossible for someone to accidentally open the door and fall out.