Linda Hasenfratz Net Worth: How a Tariff Cut It to $800 Million, Then a Carve-Out Doubled It to $1.8 Billion
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Linda Hasenfratz's net worth is $1.8 billion, per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, as reported by Bloomberg on 17 August 2026. A year earlier, the same tracker had her fortune down around $800 million, low enough to cost her billionaire status entirely, after the first round of Trump-era tariffs targeting Canadian autos hit Linamar Corp, the manufacturer she runs and largely owns. The swing back to $1.8 billion, roughly double the low point, came once a later carve-out spared the specific product category that makes up most of Linamar's earnings.
| Publisher | Timing | Figure | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bloomberg Billionaires Index | "Last year" (2025), per Bloomberg's 17 August 2026 report | ~$800 million | Fell below billionaire status after the first round of auto tariffs |
| Bloomberg Billionaires Index | 17 August 2026 | $1.8 billion | Billionaire status regained |
Both figures come from the same tracker, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which makes the roughly 2x rebound a legitimate single-publisher before-and-after rather than a mismatch between two different methodologies. Bloomberg's own report did not attach an exact date to the $800 million low, describing it only as "last year" relative to its August 2026 article, so this profile states that plainly rather than inventing a date. No dated Forbes figure naming Linda Hasenfratz individually turned up in this run's research, consistent with the standing rule in this series: when only one publisher currently prices someone, say so rather than assume a second number exists.
The fortune sits almost entirely in Linamar Corporation (LNR on the Toronto Stock Exchange), the Guelph, Ontario auto-parts and industrial-equipment manufacturer her father, Frank Hasenfratz, started in the basement of his home in 1966. Hasenfratz has led the company as CEO since 2002 and chairs its board today.
Her stake grew in a specific, dated step. Frank Hasenfratz died on 8 January 2022, per Linamar's own statement announcing his passing. On 24 March 2023, Linamar disclosed via a CNW/Newswire.ca press release that, following the completion of estate administration, 15,567,483 common shares (about 25.3% of the company) previously held by his estate had vested in Linda Hasenfratz. Combined with shares she already held, that brought her total to 20,270,381 common shares, about 33.0% of Linamar's then-outstanding shares, and made her the company's controlling shareholder under Canadian securities law. Linamar's own 2026 corporate filings put total shares outstanding at 59,447,985 as of 4 March 2026.
Two tariff events, a year apart, drove the swing, per Bloomberg's 17 August 2026 report. When Trump's first round of tariffs targeting the Canadian auto sector took effect in 2025, including a 25% levy on assembled vehicles, Linamar's stock plunged and Hasenfratz's fortune fell to around $800 million. Linamar's own shares hit a new 12-month low on 9 April 2025, per MarketBeat, in the same window the executive order's vehicle tariffs took effect.
The rebound followed a specific carve-out: auto parts compliant with the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement stayed exempt from the vehicle tariff, and Bloomberg reports that category makes up more than 60% of Linamar's earnings. Linamar's own Q2 2026 results, reported 12 August 2026, showed why that mattered: Mobility segment sales rose 20.5% year over year to CAD 3.1 billion company-wide, with Mobility's own normalized operating earnings up 28.6%, while the separate Industrial segment, exposed to different Section 232 tariffs and weak agriculture demand, saw normalized operating earnings fall 23.8% over the same period. Linamar's stock climbed about 27% in 2026 on the Toronto Stock Exchange, per Bloomberg, and touched a fresh 52-week high of C$108.90 on 21 August 2026, per contemporaneous market reporting.
More knowable than most fortunes in this series, because Linamar is a single, directly held, publicly listed stock rather than wealth spread across private holding companies. The main gap is timing rather than structure: Hasenfratz's most recent precisely dated share count comes from the 2023 estate disclosure, not a fresh 2026 filing, so the 33.0% figure may have drifted slightly with routine trading since. And because more than 90% of her wealth sits in one ticker, her tracked net worth will keep moving with Linamar's share price and with whichever tariff or trade decision affects it next, the same concentration risk this series has already flagged in MacKenzie Scott's Amazon-heavy fortune, though there the swings are driven by markets rather than a single government policy category.
A tariff's exact scope, not just its existence, is what moved this fortune. The headline "auto tariffs" news hit Hasenfratz's wealth hard in 2025, but the detail that determined the rebound was which products the tariff actually covered: assembled vehicles, not USMCA-compliant parts. That is a sharper, more granular version of the policy-risk story this series has already told with Susilo Wonowidjojo's Gudang Garam fortune, where a single excise-tax decision moved sentiment on one timeline and the underlying business on another. NetWort's Macro dashboard tracks the trade and rate decisions that can swing a concentrated, single-stock fortune like this one, in either direction, inside a single year.