Bellinzona (awp/sda) – The entrepreneur Sergio Mantegazza died in Ticino on Thursday. In the 1950s he helped the travel agency Globus Viaggi, founded by his father, achieve international success. According to Forbes Magazine, he was one of the richest people in the world.
The editorial team of the Ticino newspaper “Corriere del Ticino” confirmed the death of the billionaire to the Keystone-SDA news agency. The editorial team received the obituary on Thursday.
The Mantegazza tourism company began in the 1920s with a pedalo rental on Lake Lugano. The small company later offered bus excursions. In 1950, excursions to Rome, Venice and the French Riviera were added under the name “Globus Viaggi”.
In 1968, the company founded the charter airline Monarch, based in Luton, England, which transported around seven million passengers in 2006. In 2008, according to the Historical Lexicon of Switzerland (HLS), the Globus Group employed 5,000 people worldwide and had a fleet of 34 medium- and long-haul aircraft.
In 2014, the Ticino billionaire family separated from Monarch Airlines. According to various media reports, the Mantegazzas had invested a total of around 150 million francs in the operating airline over several years.
Connections to the Lugano hockey club
Sergio’s brother Geo Mantegazza was president of the Lugano hockey club from 1978 to 1990. During his tenure, the club was promoted to the National League A in 1981-82 and won four championship titles. Geo Mantegazza’s daughter Vicky is currently president of HC Lugano.
In the ranking of the US Forbes Magazine, Sergio Mantegazza took 1164th place in the ranking of the richest people in the world in 2023 with a fortune of 2.7 billion US dollars. He was 96 years old.