The Van Marcke business was established in 1929 by Raymond Van Marcke, who split the shares equally with his wife. The couple had three sons – Jean, Carl and Bruno. Jean took over as head of the company when father Raymond died, but was thought to be very much under the shadow of his mother, Marie-Thérèse Decruyenaere, who remained extremely active in the company until her old age.

Carl was, meanwhile, busy with another family property, the office furniture manufacturing company Mewaf. He managed to convince his mother that Jean’s modern ideas of corporate governance were not suitable for Van Marcke, and, in 1997, the pair removed Jean from power.

Two years later, brother Bruno was deposed from his already limited role; some analysts even believe Carl tried to engineer a putsch against his mother. In any event, he now had virtually unfettered control over the company, which he ran until last week, albeit from the relative exile of his chateau in Kruishoutem, East Flanders.

A company statement described him as “highly gifted, discreet and an absolute perfectionist”. He leaves a wife and two adult children. Van Marcke, with sales last year of €410 million, is the largest wholesaler of sanitary installations in Belgium and the fourthlargest in Europe.