Aldi may appear as if they were a single enterprise with certain store brands or when negotiating with contractor companies. The individual groups were originally owned and managed jointly by the brothers. Karl Albrecht, who died in 2014, retained ownership of Aldi Süd with a personal wealth of €17.2 billion that made him the richest man in Germany. The co-owners of Aldi Nord, Berthold and Theo Albrecht Jr. came close behind at €16 billion. Dieter Schwarz, owner of Lidl and Kaufland came in third, with a fortune of €11.5 billion. Aldi started to expand internationally in 1967, when Aldi Süd acquired
Dirk (supermarket) Dirk (supermarket) Dirk, formerly Dirk van den Broek, is a supermarket chain that operates 110 stores in the Netherlands. The original business was established in 1942 by Dirk van den Broek as a milk store in Amsterdam. In 1948 it was converted into a self-service market. The first supermarket was opened in 1953, also in Amsterdam. In 1972 Dirk started the Digros formule located in Katwijk, in 1973 he bought the supermarkets from Bas van der Heijden which were located around Rotterdam. In 2009 the company of Dirk van den Broek merged with Dirk Kat's DekaMarkt into the Detailresult Groep.