Olivier Perier, a billionaire heir to Belgium’s D’Ieteren auto empire, is directing a massive cash windfall toward new European acquisitions through his expanded holding company, SPDG. The Brussels-based firm now commands €3.5 billion, equivalent to about $3.9 billion, in net assets, according to recent regulatory filings and company disclosures.
The capital expansion follows a 2024 transaction in which Perier and his mother, Catheline D’Ieteren, exited the D’Ieteren Group, a historic business founded at the start of the 19th century. The pair gained roughly €2.4 billion, or $2.7 billion, in cash from the deal by collecting an extraordinary dividend and selling a nearly 17% stake to Perier’s cousin, Nicolas D’Ieteren. Additional filings indicate their remaining holding stood at just under 10% by mid-2025, with plans to gradually offload the balance. Perier and his mother may also benefit from a proposed initial public offering for Belron, the group’s windscreen repair specialist.
While the shareholder reorganization between the two family branches surprised D’Ieteren minority investors and left the group’s stock price below pre-deal levels, it has significantly fortified SPDG’s investment capacity outside the automotive sector. Perier, a 55-year-old trained architect who serves as chairman and chief executive officer of SPDG, is pursuing a long-held goal of acquiring majority stakes in European companies focused on sustainable development.
Operating on what it describes as an independent model, the firm states that it requires no external fundraising, carries no limited partner constraints, and functions without a fixed timeline. SPDG’s individual equity investments range from €200 million to €750 million, with roughly two-thirds of its assets dedicated to operational companies in the real economy and the remaining third in financial assets and real estate holdings.
The firm’s recent portfolio includes stakes in business-class airline La Compagnie, circular energy storage firm Octave, wind-power specialist Green Neon, clinic operator Global Dental Services, and engineering platform Hysopt. SPDG has explicitly stated that it is intensifying its active holdings in operational activities tied to the energy transition, infrastructure, transport, and the circular economy.
To manage its growing portfolio, SPDG has gone on a hiring spree and expanded its team to approximately 32 people, up from 14 three years ago. Longtime advisers Michele Alle, Francesco D’Amico, and Denis Pettiaux remain with the firm, while Christian Cara joined over the past year as chief investment officer after previously working for Germany’s Oetker dynasty and beginning his career at Boston Consulting Group. The firm also opened a new Paris office located in an 18th-century mansion known as the Hotel de Bourrienne, which it partly owns alongside French investor Charles Beigbeder.
Despite the scale of its private equity operations, SPDG rejects classification as a conventional family office, instead positioning itself as an industrial family enterprise. The firm declined to comment on its strategy and investments beyond confirming a focus on the redeployment of assets.
Perier’s diversification away from the automotive industry mirrors broader wealth-management strategies deployed by other ultra-high-net-worth families globally. Similar moves include L’Oréal heiress Bettencourt Meyers investing through Tethys Invest and the Wertheimer family channeling Chanel fortunes via Mousse Partners.
The D’Ieteren family split itself was described as a once-in-a-generation event rooted in longstanding divisions over personalities and business goals within the private clan, designed to prevent future conflict. The broader D’Ieteren dynasty traces its origins back to 1805, when Jean-Joseph D’Ieteren established a wheel workshop in Brussels that subsequently evolved into carriages and automotive body manufacturing. Catheline D’Ieteren, an art historian and philanthropist, did not play an active operational role in the enterprise, whereas her husband, Maurice Perier, served on the board for over three decades and currently holds the title of advisor emeritus at SPDG.
