Markets Magazine

Louis-Dreyfus Widow Chairman Ousts Men Running Commodities Giant

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When Margarita Louis-Dreyfus took her 13-year-old twins on a weeklong trip to Brazil for school break in October 2010, it wasn’t a beach-filled vacation.

She and the boys donned coveralls and hard hats. Then they toured the ports, plantations and juice factories of their namesake company, Louis Dreyfus Holding BV, in a crash course on the world’s biggest cotton and rice trader.