Denmark’s richest man, A.P. Moeller-Maersk group patriarch Maersk Mc-Kinney Moeller, dies

The head of Danish shipping and oil conglomerate A.P. Moeller-Maersk, Maersk Mc-Kinney Moeller, has died at age 98.

Mc-Kinney Moller, Denmark's richest man and most powerful businessman, died April 16 at a hospital in Copenhagen just days after attending the A.P. Moeller-Maersk group annual shareholders' meeting, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The magnate, who took over the the group in 1965 when his father Peter Moeller, Maersk's founder, died, had reportedly stepped back from daily management in 2003, at age 90.

However, he firmly controlled the company as chairman of three family foundations that own more than 50 percent of the company's issued A shares, the Journal wrote. 

Mc-Kinney Moeller, listed on Forbes magazine's annual billionaire's list, turned the A.P. Moeller-Maersk group from two small shipping companies that into a global conglomerate with 108,000 workers in 130 countries, according to the Associated Press.

A.P. Moeller-Maersk owns the world's biggest publicly held container shipping group, Maersk Sealand.

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Mc-Kinney Moeller’s personal fortune was estimated at 8.3 billion kroner ($1.5 billion), while assets under his family’s control were worth approximately 125 billion kroner ($22 billion), according to the Washington Post.

The paper wrote that Mc-Kinney Moeller, whose mother was American, was a staunch supporter of the US, and that during World War II, his ships were engaged in Allied service under British or U.S. flags.

Maersk Line Ltd. also transported US troops and military equipment for the 1991 Gulf War and US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In 2000, he also reportedly ordered the sale of the group’s 14 percent stake in Denmark’s Berlingske media group after it ran a series of articles claiming a company in which A.P. Moeller held a stake had made weapons for the Germans during World War II.

Mc-Kinney Moeller was reportedly a close friend of Denmark’s royal family.

Queen Margrethe II  knighted him in 2000, bestowing the Elephant Order, which is more commonly given to royals and heads of states.