Margarita Louis-Dreyfus

The Louis-Dreyfus Company, which Margarita Louis-Dreyfus controls through her position as chairperson of its parent holding company, is one of the few agricultural merchants that controls the worldwide flow of crops and food stuffs. It has been battered of late by bumper harvests that have sunk crop prices and saw its CEO and CFO step down suddenly in September amid the downturn. At the same time, the company has worked to refocus its business, divesting assets like part of its Australia fertilizer company Landmark Operations in April and its global metals business, which it sold to NCCL Natural Resources Investment Fund, in May. At the same time, it’s looked to boost its processing activities. In September, for instance, it opened a new oilseed processing plant in Tianjin, China.