Meet the World's Youngest Billionaire… She’s Just 19

Alexandra Andresen

Alexandra Andresen, a teenager from Norway has been named the world’s youngest billionaire.

Forbes magazine compiled a list of all people worth at least a billion dollars, and 19-year-old Alexandra made the list for the first time. Forbes says she is worth an estimated $1.2 billion. She is ranked 1,476^th of the 1,810 people on the list.

Her sister Katharina, 20, is the second youngest person on the list. The sisters each own 42.2 percent of the investment company Ferd, a private company that their great-great-great grandfather, Johan Henrik Andresen, purchased in 1849. It has grown to become Norway's biggest cigarette producer.

Interestingly, the third youngest person on the list – Gustav Magnar Witzoe, 22 – is also Norwegian.

Alexandra and Katharina Andresen say they have become quite popular in social media since details of their wealth became public. Katharina told Norwegian media she has received hundreds of friend requests on Facebook.

Her Facebook page expresses her love of fashion, friends and dogs. Alexandra, on the other hand, is a horse enthusiast. Her photo stream on Instagram reveals her great love and passion for horses. She competes in the equestrian sport of dressage. Dressage is the art of riding and training a horse in a manner that develops obedience, flexibility and balance.

In spite of their fabulous wealth, the sisters live deliberately low-key lives and their father, Johan Andresen, still insists that they buy all their cars second-hand.

“I actually save all the time, I have always done,” said Alexandra in an interview last year with the Ferd’s corporate magazine.

“I save when I get my weekly allowance, and I save the cash prizes I win in competitions or if I get money as a gift for my birthday. It means I can buy myself things I really want, like a bag or a pair of shoes, without having to ask mum or dad for money.”

Katharina says she could choose not to work, “but I will take part in the community and look forward to it. It's not always easy to know how to live up to expectations.”

In an interview with Norway’s Aftenposten newspaper last year, their father said he would not insist that either of his daughters become actively involved in the family business.

“It was expected of me – and I had the ambition – to become chief executive,” he said. “It is not certain that my children do. I’ll give them the opportunity to choose as people and not as pre-programmed robots. I do not want to leave a void at management level that must be filled by my girls.”

Katharina lives in Oslo, already works at the family firm. Alexandra, who has achieved international acclaim with her equestrianism, has indicated what she wants to do.

"This is what I want to do for the rest of my life – ride!" she told Eurodressage magazine.