Ball-bearing tycoon reaches for Continental

By Sylvia Westall

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Spinning steel balls have made Maria-Elisabeth Schaeffler one the world's richest women, but most Germans have never heard of the glamorous 66 year old whose company is on the hunt for one of the country's most famous household names.

Maria-Elisabeth and her son own Schaeffler, which ranks as the world's second biggest ball-bearings maker after Sweden's SKF and which earlier this week made an 11 billion euro ($17.5 billion) bid for Continental AG, a company three times its size.

Continental, which makes tires and brakes used in cars around the world, has slammed the bid as opportunistic and unlawful.

With her swept-back blond hair, red lipstick and sharp suits, the little-known Schaeffler has now been liberally splashed across the pages of German newspapers.

One photo shows her with a wide grin brandishing a wine glass, while another presents her cradling her Yorkshire terrier Amadeus in a bright white office.

"You can't get along in this world by being nice to everyone," Schaeffler was quoted as saying in 2001 by the Welt am Sonntag, in one of her rare newspaper interviews.

Schaeffler Group generates annual sales of 8.9 billion euros and if it succeeds in its Continental bid it would be the first time a German family-owned company has taken over a group listed in the country's blue-chip DAX index.

Maria-Elisabeth became owner of Schaeffler Group with her son after her husband Georg died in 1996. A post-war refugee, Georg had set up the company in 1946 with his brother Wilhelm.

Her family now has a net worth of $8.5 billion, putting them at 104th on the Forbes magazine list of the world's richest people, ahead of such luminaries as media tycoon Rupert Murdoch and British retail entrepreneur Philip Green and his wife Cristina.

OPERA AND A HOSTILE TAKEOVER

Born in Prague and brought up in Vienna, Maria-Elisabeth is a keen opera fan and named two of her dogs Fidelio and Tosca, according to German newspaper reports.

She trained at medical school in Vienna, according to the company's website, and the German government has showered her with awards for her entrepreneurship including the Cross of Merit, a prized German state decoration.

Schaeffler Group has its origins in a hostile takeover completed in 2002, when forerunner INA bought rival FAG Kugelfischer. The operation was code-named "Mozart" according to German media.

As rumors about the FAG Kugelfischer takeover swirled in Germany at the time, Maria-Elisabeth told the Welt am Sonntag a lot of what was written about the bid was "complete nonsense ... It makes my hair stand on end."

The Continental bid has also shaken one of the world's biggest auto parts makers, which employs 150,000 worldwide, a third of them in Germany.