GENEVA—Rudolph R. Spruengli, heir to a Swiss chocolate empire and head of the world-renowned Lindt & Spruengli business for more than two decades, has died at the age of 88, his company said Wednesday.
Spruengli, who owned and chaired the Swiss chocolate company Chocoladefabriken Lindt & Spruengli AG during a decisive period of growth and expansion, died on Monday, a company spokeswoman said.
Spruengli was born into the Lindt & Spruengli chocolate dynasty in 1920 and spent his entire working life with the family firm, known worldwide for its luxury chocolates.
From 1971 to 1994, Spruengli was the executive board chairman -- the fifth generation of the family to hold the post.
"I always had the impression that my ancestors were looking over my shoulder and that motivated me my whole life long," he told the Zurich newspaper Tagesanzeiger in an interview to mark his 80th birthday.
Under Spruengli's patronage, the company became one of the world's best-known premium chocolate producers, with a work force of 4,000. His overriding passion and priority was to ensure that the family firm, established in 1845, stayed out of the acquisitive clutches of multinationals.
He listed Lindt & Spruengli on the Swiss stock exchange in 1986.
Widely dubbed "the chocolate king" and the "patriarch" because of his autocratic style, Spruengli also had a reputation for fending off potential challenges to his supremacy from other family members -- including from his own two sons, Luzius and Rudolf.
"The firm is more important than the family," he once declared.
When Spruengli retired in 1994, he named as successor Ernst Tanner, a company director and former manager with U.S. consumer products giant Johnson & Johnson.
The company, which is owned by a wide range of public shareholders, mostly in Switzerland, reported a full-year profit of 209 million Swiss francs for 2006 with sales of 2.59 billion francs.
Spruengli is survived by his second wife, two sons and a daughter.
