'I'm sorry' rail death tycoon's family find suicide note

GERMAN tycoon Adolf Merckle left a note for his family saying: "I'm sorry", before flinging himself beneath the wheels of a train.

Mr Merckle, 74, had been depressed over the potential break-up of his business empire, which employed 100,000 people. On Sunday, he had signed up for €400million of bridging loans to keep his enterprises afloat, but insiders say it looked increasingly likely that the firms would face emergency sales.

The father-of-four told his family on Monday that he "had to go to the office for a while". He left the home he shared with his wife Ruth in the southern German village of Blaubeuren shortly before 5pm and drove to a railway embankment two miles away. In temperatures of -15C he climbed up the embankment, down the other side and threw himself under a regional express. His mangled corpse lay undiscovered for two hours until the searchlight of another train picked it out in the snow. Personal effects, coupled with the letter and his VW Golf parked nearby, proved it one of Germany's richest men.

His VEM holding company controls the pharmaceutical group Ratiopharm, building materials giant Heidelberg-Cement and wholesale drug distributor Phoenix. These were all in trouble due to write-downs on share values.

Then Mr Merckle lost £1billion of his fortune in a bet on shares in car giant VW, which swung violently up and down late last year, and had to ask banks to bail out him and his empire.

Sunday's agreements guarantee that Ratiopharm is not sold immediately but friends say Merckle could not face losing control.