1. Bill Gates
$66 billion (UP)
Source: Microsoft
Age: 56
Residence: Medina, Washington
The planet’s most generous person --he’s given away $28
billion so far -- has a new obsession: building a better toilet for those
without water or sewage systems. Every year 1.5 million children die from food
and water tainted with fecal matter, more than the annual deaths from AIDS and
malaria combined. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is also spearheading
a malaria vaccine that is showing promise in clinical trials. Gates’ net worth
climbed $7 billion since last year on the strength of Microsoft shares, which
rose 20%, and on gains from investments in private equity, bonds and stocks
such as hygiene tech firm Ecolab and Mexican TV broadcaster Televisa. He
continues to sell shares of Microsoft--he shed 80 million in the past year,
about 15% of his stake--so that now just one-fifth of his net worth stems from
the software company he cofounded 37 years ago. Gates and his good friend
Warren Buffett continue to recruit new members to their Giving Pledge—so far 91
people, including 10 new signatories, have taken the pledge to donate at least
half of their fortune to charity, in life or death.
2. Warren Buffett
$46 billion (UP)
Source: Berkshire Hathaway
Age: 82
Residence: Omaha, Nebraska
Buffett recently completed radiation treatment for prostate
cancer, five months after he notified Berkshire Hathaway shareholders of his
condition, assuring them that it was “not remotely life-threatening.” Still, he
has gotten his house in order. In December, he chose his farmer son, Howard, as
the future non-executive chairman and “guardian of the firm’s values.” In
February, he said he’d picked his CEO replacement but has declined to give a
name. He’s also stepping up philanthropically. He gave $1.5 billion to the
Gates Foundation in July, bringing his total giving to $17.25 billion. On his
birthday in August, he pledged $3 billion of stock to his children’s
foundations. His fortune is up $7 billion as class A shares jumped more than
20% since last year. After studying under Benjamin Graham at Columbia Business
School, Buffett offered to work for his former professor’s investment
partnership, Graham-Newman Corporation, for free. According to Buffett, “he
turned me down as overvalued.” It was only after several years of “pestering”
that the father of value investing agreed to take on the younger man in 1954.
When Graham retired two years later, Buffett returned to Nebraska to launch his
own partnership. In 1962, Buffett began buying up shares of a struggling
textile company called Berkshire Hathaway. Though Buffett has called Berkshire
“the dumbest stock” he ever bought, the firm has long since shed its textile
assets and today serves as Buffett’s famed investment vehicle. In May,
Berkshire snapped up dozens of local newspapers from Media General after
announcing a deal for the Omaha World-Herald in November 2011.
3. Larry Ellison
$41 billion (UP)
Source: Oracle
Age: 68
Residence: Woodside, California
Despite ongoing legal battles with such rivals as SAP, HP
and Google, shares of Oracle, the software firm Ellison has run for 35 years,
were up 20% in the past 12 months. He was the year’s biggest dollar gainer,
adding $8 billion to his net worth. He spent a reported $500 million to buy 98%
of Hawaiian island of Lanai from David Murdock in June. His other passion,
yachting, is making its mark on San Francisco as anticipation builds for the
2013 America’s Cup. Ellison, who signed on to the Gates-Buffett Giving Pledge
in 2010, has thus far donated $445 million, mostly via Oracle stock, to his
Ellison Medical Foundation, which supports research on aging and age-related
diseases. His latest gift to the foundation was 1.6 million shares of
Oracle--worth $45 million--in April.
4. Charles Koch (tie)
$31 billion (UP)
Source: Diversified
Age: 76
Residence: Wichita, Kansas
The head of the nation’s second biggest private company,
$115 billion (sales) Koch Industries, Charles Koch continues to pay down debt
and generate rich cash flow. By Forbes’
estimates the Wichita, Kansas company, with interests in chemicals, refining
and Georgia Pacific, which makes Brawny paper towels and Dixie cups, is now
worth $75 billion, pushing up Koch’s own net worth by $6 billion in the past
year. A well-known libertarian, he gives $40 million plus a year to his
foundation, which gives grants to colleges and universities to study
"market-based tools that enable individuals, institutions and societies to
prosper." He also helped found the Cato Institute, which he sued last year
but the parties settled, and the Mercatus Center at George Mason University,
both bastions of free-market and libertarian scholarship. And he's busy funding
groups designed to raise a new generation of free-market entrepreneurs,
including Youth Entrepreneurs Kansas, which teaches entrepreneurship to about
1,000 high school students each year; and the Bill of Rights Institute, which
runs programs to educate teachers and students on the importance of the
Constitution in "securing our liberty as Americans.”
5. David Koch (tie)
$31 billion (UP)
Source: Diversified
Age: 72
Residence: New York City
Manhattan’s richest resident David Koch is full of
surprises: The New York delegate at the Republican National Convention told
Politico that week that he believes in gay marriage and in raising taxes to pay
down the federal debt. Earlier in the year, he and his brother Charles had sued
the conservative Cato Institute, which they helped found in 1977, over issues
of control; the parties later settled. Despite any drama, Koch Industries, the
second largest privately held company in the U.S. with interests in pipelines,
refineries, fertilizer and consumer products like Brawny paper towel and Dixie
cups, continues to generate rich cash flow and pay down debt. David, who is executive vice president, is
worth $6 billion more this year thanks to an increase in the company’s value. A
prostate cancer survivor, he says his biggest philanthropic contributions so
far go toward a “moon shot” campaign to finding a cure for cancer, to which
he’s donated more than $200 million.
6. Christy Walton & family
$27.9 billion (UP)
Source: Wal-Mart
Age: 57
Residence: Jackson, Wyoming
Wal-Mart widow Christy Walton is the richest woman in the
United States once again. She inherited her wealth when husband John Walton, a
former Green Beret and Vietnam War medic, died in an airplane crash in 2005.
John’s investment in First Solar had boosted Christy’s net worth well above the
rest of her family, but the stock tanked in 2012, closing her lead to just $1.1
billion (down from $3.4 billion last year) over brother-in-law Jim. The rest of
her holdings are in Wal-Mart, the massive retailer founded by her father-in-law
Sam Walton and his brother James in 1962. Wal-Mart’s shares are up more than a
third since last year, pushing Christy’s net worth up by $3.4 billion.
7. Jim Walton
$26.8 billion (UP)
Source: Wal-Mart
Age: 64
Residence: Bentonville, Arkansas
Wal-Mart heir Jim Walton is the youngest son of retail
visionary Sam (d. 1992), who founded the massive retailer with his brother
James, opening a single store in Rogers, Ark. in 1962. Wal-Mart now has sales
of $444 billion and employs 2.2 million people worldwide. Since last year, Jim
received more than $430 million in dividends after taxes, and the stock is up
36%—boosting his net worth by $5.7 billion. He and his siblings have given
about $2 billion to the Walton Family Foundation over the last five years. Jim
is also the CEO of his family’s Arvest Bank, which has branches in Arkansas,
Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri. He gave $100,000 to the Super PAC for Republican
presidential nominee Mitt Romney.
8. Alice Walton
$26.3 billion (UP)
Source: Wal-Mart
Age: 62
Residence: Fort Worth, Texas
Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton opened her ambitious Crystal
Bridges Museum of American Art in November 2011. The museum, which seeks to
bring a world-class art experience to Bentonville, Ark., includes works she has
donated herself (with a personal collection valued in the hundreds of millions
of dollars.) Alice and her siblings have also donated about $2 billion to the
Walton Family Foundation over the last five years. Daughter of retail visionary
Sam, Alice graduated from Trinity College in San Antonio, Tex., and now runs a
horse ranch in central Texas. Since last year, she received more than $420
million in dividends after taxes, and the stock is up 36%—boosting her net
worth by $5.4 billion.
9. S. Robson Walton
$26.1 billion (UP)
Source: Wal-Mart
Age: 68
Residence: Bentonville, Arkansas
Wal-Mart heir S. Robson Walton has served as chairman of the
board for the massive retailer since 1992. Rob is the eldest son of visionary
retailer Sam, a former clerk who opened his first store with help from his
brother James in 1962 in Rogers, Ark. Today, Wal-Mart has sales of $444 billion
and employs 2.2 million people worldwide. Since last year, Rob received more
than $420 million in dividends after taxes, and the stock is up 36%—boosting his
net worth by $5.6 billion. Before joining Wal-Mart, he was a partner with the
law firm of Conner & Winters in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Rob and his siblings have
donated about $2 billion to the Walton Family Foundation over the last five
years.
10. Michael Bloomberg
$25 billion (UP)
Source: Bloomberg LP
Age: 70
Residence: New York City
New York City’s mayor has been working to enact as much
change as he can in his adopted hometown during his final term. A ban he
proposed on super-sized sugary drinks will take effect in March, and he was
vocal in his support of the state’s Marriage Equality Act, passed in 2011. He’s
renewed his call for stricter gun control in the wake of July’s movie theater
shootings in Colorado. Over the years, he’s given away $2.8 billion. In 2011,
he donated $330 million to groups including the Sierra Club, the Alliance for
the Arts and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. At his financial
data and media firm, Bloomberg LP, sales popped an estimated 20% in 2011 to
$7.6 billion.
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