Olav Thon, real estate developer in Norway, dead at 101 [Video]

OSLO, Norway –

Olav Thon, a billionaire entrepreneur recognizable for his bright red cap who went from selling leather and fox hides in his youth to build one of Norway’s biggest real estate empires, has died, his company said Saturday. He was 101.

“It is with great sadness that we have today received the news that Olav Thon has passed away,” Olav Thon Gruppen said in a statement. The cause of death was not immediately specified.

Thon was born in the village of Ål in the Hallingdal Valley, northwest of Oslo, on June 29, 1923.

He had initially planned to study medicine, but World War II extinguished those hopes, and he instead turned to breeding animals for their fur at his home farm, according to Norwegian news agency NTB.

Thon eventually moved from selling leather into real estate and purchased his first apartment building in 1950.

From there, he built a group that …