The dynasty starts with a name change. Ruben was born Ruben Andersson in 1895 in Raus, near Helsingborg, the son of small business owners August Andersson and Mathilda Fredrika Svensson.[page:32] He studied economics at the Stockholm School of Economics and later at Columbia University in the United States, earning an MSc in 1920 before returning to Sweden to become a director at Esselte.[page:32]

In 1921 he changed his surname to Rausing, a branding decision that would later define a global company.[page:32] Eight years later, in 1929, he entered the packaging business as a partner in Åkerlund & Rausing, a small firm whose premises would eventually incubate Tetra Pak.[page:32] By 1933 Ruben had bought out the other partners’ shares, giving him full control of the operation just as new ideas in food packaging were about to emerge.[page:32]

In the early 1940s, Ruben had the idea of manufacturing packaging specifically for liquid products.[page:32] Instead of heavy glass bottles, he envisaged lightweight, disposable cartons that could hold milk or juice, using layered paper and later aseptic technology to keep contents fresh.

Out of this came Tetra Pak — a system of cartons and filling machines that would become standard in supermarkets worldwide.[page:32] While the Wikipedia extract you’re viewing doesn’t spell out the full later history, the key point is that this intellectual and engineering leap turned a modest packaging company into the kernel of Tetra Laval, a group whose machines and materials now sit behind everyday fridges in dozens of countries.[page:32]

Ruben’s business was inherited by two of his sons, Hans and Gad Rausing.[page:32] They took over the company and oversaw its expansion, with Tetra Pak becoming the core asset and, later, Tetra Laval emerging as the holding structure for packaging and related operations.[page:32]

In 1996, the partnership formally ended: Hans sold his half of the Tetra Laval Group to his brother Gad for a reported 7 billion dollars.[page:32] That transaction concentrated direct control in Gad’s branch of the family, while Hans and his descendants shifted into a more cash‑rich, less operationally central position — often investing from the UK, where Hans lived for many years.[page:32]

After Gad’s death in 2000, his widow Birgit and their three children — Jörn, Finn and Kirsten — emerged as the controlling owners of Tetra Laval.[page:32] The Wikipedia entry states directly that Jörn, Finn and Kirsten now own and control the group, putting day‑to‑day corporate power squarely in their hands.[page:32]

Kirsten Rausing is known not only as a businesswoman but also as a racehorse owner and breeder, while Finn and Jörn operate primarily as businessmen.[page:32] Their collective role is to steward a private industrial group whose revenues and assets far exceed those of most publicly visible billionaires — but whose name rarely appears on the products consumers see, which are branded as Tetra Pak, not Rausing.[page:32]

Ruben’s other son, Hans Rausing, who died in 2019, built his own fortune from his share of the business before the 1996 sale.[page:32] With his wife Märit, he had three children: Lisbet, Sigrid and Hans Kristian.[page:32] Lisbet and Sigrid Rausing are prominent philanthropists, while Hans Kristian became better known to the public through personal scandals than through business roles.[page:32]

On 10 July 2012, Hans Kristian’s wife, Eva Rausing, reputedly one of the richest women in the United Kingdom, was found dead at their home in Cadogan Place, Belgravia, London.[page:32] Hans Kristian, then 49, was arrested in connection with her death and on suspicion of drug offences, bringing rare tabloid attention to a family that usually prefers anonymity.[page:32] He has since remarried Julia Delves Broughton, a Christie’s director, while his sisters continue their philanthropic and cultural work.[page:32]

The “Notable family members” section reads like a structured family office directory. At the top sit Ruben and his wife Elisabeth, followed by sons Gad, Hans and Sven.[page:32] Under Gad and Birgit come Kirsten, Finn and Jörn, the current owners of Tetra Laval; under Hans and Märit come Lisbet, Sigrid and Hans Kristian.[page:32]

The companion “Family tree” table in the article visually lays this out, highlighting that the key economic power in the industrial group is concentrated in the Gad–Birgit line, while the Hans–Märit line channels wealth into philanthropy, culture and personal fortunes mostly based in the UK.[page:32] Sven’s line is noted but less detailed in this extract, underscoring that the main corporate story now runs through just a few names.[page:32]

Public sources like Forbes and the UK Rich List have long tracked Rausing wealth, listing figures such as Hans and Birgit among the world’s billionaires.[page:32] Although the Wikipedia snippet you have open only links to older lists, they confirm that the family ranks among the richest in Sweden and the UK, with fortunes built almost entirely on packaging technology.[page:32]

Unlike families that own banks or oil fields, the Rausings control an infrastructural niche that is easy to overlook: the machinery and cartons that move liquids from factories to fridges. That tollbooth on the global food system is why a genealogy that begins with August Andersson and Mathilda Svensson now ends with heirs who quietly sit on tens of billions — all thanks to a box that looks trivial until you count how many are filled each day.[page:32]