Belgium’s New Richest Family: The Lhoist-Berghmans Dynasty
The Lhoist-Berghmans family, led by Baron Jean-Pierre Berghmans (77), has become the richest family in Belgium following the landmark sale of their Walloon lime giant Lhoist’s North American division to U.S. building materials company Martin Marietta for $13.5 billion (€11.8 billion). According to De Rijkste Belgen, the definitive Belgian wealth ranking, the family’s estimated fortune now stands at approximately €12.9 billion, catapulting them past former richest Belgian Eric Wittouck (€11.5 billion) and AB InBev heir Alexandre Van Damme.
A Deal That Reshaped the Wealth Landscape
The transaction, announced on June 29, 2026, consists of $7 billion in cash and $6.5 billion in Martin Marietta stock, as reported by CNBC. The deal gives the Berghmans family approximately 15% ownership in the New York Stock Exchange-listed Martin Marietta, making them the company’s largest individual shareholder. They also secure a board seat and an observer position, with Lhoist CEO Philipp Niemann expected to serve as director.
Lhoist North America, the entity being sold, reported revenue of $1.8 billion (€1.6 billion) in 2025 and adjusted EBITDA of $786 million (€690 million). The assets being transferred include 45 distribution centers, 20 production facilities and quarries, and 2 billion tons of limestone reserves concentrated in Sun Belt metropolitan corridors, according to Business AM. Martin Marietta expects to realize approximately $85 million in annual run-rate cost synergies from the combination.
Martin Marietta CEO Ward Nye said demand for high-quality lime products is expected to remain resilient for decades, driven by investment in infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, energy development, and industrial expansion in the U.S. The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2026, subject to regulatory approvals.
From a Humble Quarry to a Global Empire
The story of the Lhoist-Berghmans fortune begins in 1889, when Hippolyte Dumont, the son of a day laborer who started working as a timekeeper at age 12, established Carrières et Fours à Chaux Dumont-Wautier in Hermalle-sous-Huy, near Liège. As VRT NWS notes, Dumont’s modest beginnings belied the industrial dynasty he would found. Dumont later served three terms as mayor of Ampsin, and the region along the Meuse River was then the heart of Belgium’s industrial revolution — Wallonia was the third-richest region in the world in the 19th century.
The company took its current name from Dumont’s son-in-law, Léon Lhoist, who married Dumont’s daughter Clairette and founded Etablissements Léon Lhoist in Jemelle in 1924. Lhoist expanded internationally into France just two years later, acquiring Carrières et Fours à Chaux de Dugny. The business weathered the Great Depression and World War II before embarking on a sustained period of growth through acquisitions in Belgium and France.
The fourth generation — Jean-Pierre Berghmans and his cousin Léon-Albert Lhoist — took over in the 1970s, both around age 30. They faced an existential crisis when the 1974 oil crisis devastated the Walloon steel industry, which accounted for 90% of Lhoist’s production. “My cousin Léon-Albert Lhoist and I were still very young,” Berghmans recalled in a rare interview with Trends/Tendances. “We thought long and hard. Do we go it alone? Do we bring in outside capital? Do we go public? The stock market was doing poorly. I worked day and night. A close bond was forged between the Lhoist and Berghmans families.”
The family bought out dissenting shareholders between 1977 and 1984, taking on heavy debt, and then embarked on an aggressive international expansion. The company entered the U.S. market in 1981 by acquiring a stake in Chemical Lime of Texas, then expanded into Eastern Europe in 1992 with the purchase of Vápenka Certovy Schody in the Czech Republic. Lhoist built its largest factory on the banks of the Mississippi River in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, in 1995, and expanded into Scandinavia by acquiring Faxe Kalk of Denmark the following year. Further acquisitions followed in Germany, the United Kingdom, and across Asia and Latin America.
Today, Lhoist is the world’s leading producer of lime and dolomite, with approximately 100 facilities in more than 25 countries and 6,400 employees. Its only major global competitor, Carmeuse, is also Walloon — located just kilometers from Lhoist’s headquarters in Limelette.
A Family of Exceptional Discretion
Unlike many billionaire dynasties, the Berghmans family has cultivated an extraordinary degree of privacy. Jean-Pierre Berghmans gave his first-ever interview only in 2007, after 33 years as CEO. “We have nothing to hide,” he told Trends/Tendances. “But we are a company that only sells to industry. We don’t make mass consumer goods. People don’t eat lime. Too bad, because that would be fantastic for us. We had no interest in communicating.”
The family’s commitment to privacy extends to the younger generation. “For them it’s important that they get as normal an education as possible,” Berghmans said. “I want them to interact with young people from all backgrounds. I don’t want them to be seen as rich or privileged children.”
The only major public controversy involving the family was a dispute with the Trappist monks of Rochefort Abbey, who feared that Lhoist’s quarry expansion would drain the aquifer feeding the spring used to brew their famous Trappist beer. The monks won twice in court, and Lhoist’s permit was ultimately revoked.
In 2022, the Berghmans branch quietly bought out the Lhoist branch of the family, consolidating full control. The Berghmans family now holds sole ownership of the remaining global operations in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America.
Analysis: A New Era for Belgian Wealth
The deal reshapes not just the Lhoist-Berghmans fortune but the entire Belgian wealth hierarchy. Eric Wittouck, who had held the top spot with an estimated €11.5 billion fortune built from Tiense Suiker (Tienen Sugar) and a prescient investment in Weight Watchers, now drops to second place. Alexandre Van Damme of AB InBev falls to third.
For context, Forbes’ March 2026 list of global billionaires included 18 Belgians with a combined wealth of $55.1 billion. The Lhoist-Berghmans family’s €12.9 billion fortune — nearly all generated by a single transaction — represents a staggering concentration of value from a company that produces a humble industrial mineral most people never think about.
The deal also reflects broader trends in the global economy. The U.S. building materials sector is experiencing a wave of consolidation driven by data center construction, infrastructure spending, new housing, and reshoring of manufacturing. Just the previous week, Ireland’s CRH acquired Arcosa for approximately $8.5 billion. Martin Marietta’s acquisition of Lhoist North America fits squarely within this pattern.
What the Future Holds
The deal raises significant questions about the family’s next strategic moves. With $7 billion in cash and a 15% stake in a major U.S. public company, the Berghmans family has enormous liquidity for further investments or diversification. The cash component alone exceeds the entire estimated wealth of the previous richest Belgian. The family holding company, FGI, retains full ownership of Lhoist’s remaining operations in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America — meaning the Berghmans fortune could grow further.
With Jean-Pierre Berghmans now 77, questions of succession loom. The 2022 buyout of the Lhoist branch simplified the family ownership structure, but the patriarch has been characteristically discreet about long-term plans. The company is currently led by Brazilian CEO Marcos França, who joined Lhoist do Brasil in 2004 and took operational leadership of the entire group in 2017.
For Belgium, the story underscores the enduring power of family-owned industrial dynasties. The country’s wealth landscape has long been dominated by names like AB InBev’s de Spoelberch and Van Damme families, pharmaceutical pioneer Janssen, and the D’Ieteren automotive group. The Lhoist-Berghmans ascent demonstrates that traditional Walloon heavy industry — the very sector that made Belgium the first industrialized economy on continental Europe — can still produce extraordinary wealth through international expansion and strategic focus.
What is clear is that a family that spent more than a century building a global industrial empire in deliberate obscurity has now, almost despite itself, become the most prominent name in Belgian wealth. Whether the Berghmans family will maintain its legendary discretion in the face of this new prominence remains one of the most intriguing open questions in Belgian business.