Swiss billionaire businesswoman has twins at 53

Geneva : Margarita Louis-Dreyfus, a Russian-born Swiss businesswoman who owns the French football club Olympique de Marseille, has given birth to twin girls at the age of 53, her spokeswoman said on Monday.

"The mother and babies are doing well," the spokeswoman said in an email to AFP, confirming press reports at the weekend.

Louis-Dreyfus, who will be 54 in June, inherited the group Louis-Dreyfus Commodities, a 160-year-old giant in the world commodities business, after her husband Robert Louis-Dreyfus died in 2009. They had three boys including twins.

The father of the girls is Swiss banker Philipp Hildebrand, 52, who was head of the Swiss central bank until he resigned in a storm involving alleged insider trading on the currency markets involving his former wife.

He has since become a vice chairman of the US financial group BlackRock.