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The Newcomers to Forbes Billionaires List 2012
This year we recognise 128 new billionaires from 32 countries, including 31 from the US. Here are the stories of how some entrepreneurs and heirs climbed into the ranks
$9 BILLION
GLOBAL RANK: 100
US, Inheritance
Steve Jobs’s widow inherits a fortune that was largely placed into living trusts before he died last October. She met her husband in October 1989 after he gave a talk at Stanford University, where Powell was a business school student. They married less than 2 years later in Yosemite. Powell Jobs, who sat with the First Lady at the 2012 State of the Union address, is on the board of several non-profits, including Teach for America and the New America Foundation.
$7.3 BILLION
GLOBAL RANK: 125
AUSTRALIA, Commodities
CEO of Glencore is one of its 5 executives to make their debut thanks to a successful public offering in May 2011. The South African-born, who became an Australian citizen during a stint in Melbourne and now lives in Switzerland, has vowed not to sell shares in the company while he works there. He is a former South African racewalking champion and also represented Israel in the sport.
$3.7 BILLION
GLOBAL RANK: 296
ITALY, Prada
The son of prominent Tuscan lawyers, Bertelli dropped out of engineering school to produce leather belts and handbags. He met his now wife, Miuccia Prada, at a trade fair in 1977. He orchestrated the brand’s June 2011 IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, which elevated Miuccia back into the ranks after a 6-year absence and put Bertelli—an equal partner with his wife—on the list.
$3.5 BILLION
GLOBAL RANK: 314
HONG KONG, Gambling
Macau mogul Stanley Ho, 90, has 17 children, but only Pansy is now a billionaire, thanks to the successful listing of MGM China, a JV the US gambling firm that she helped start in 2004 and now runs. She also got stakes in her father’s SJM and Shun Tak Holdings after the family settled a feud over those assets in March 2011.
$2.5 BILLION
GLOBAL RANK: 491
US, Automotive
The NFL’s first minority immigrant owner, he bought the Jacksonville Jaguars for $770 million in January. Khan tried to buy the St. Louis Rams in 2010 but was beaten out by billionaire Stan Kroenke. He came to the US from Pakistan when he was 16, started washing dishes and put himself through the University of Illinois. He founded his own company with a few thousand dollars of savings and a small loan, and made a one-piece car bumper whose design became the industry standard. Today his Flex-N-Gate sells $3-billion-a-year worth of parts to 41 car brands.
Silas Chou
$2 BILLION
GLOBAL RANK: 634
HONG KONG, Michael Kors
Images:Jobs: Getty Images; Glasenberg: Getty Images; Ho: Bobby Yip / Reuters; Bertelli: Heino Kalis / Reuters; Khan: Scott Cunningham / Getty Images; Chou: Getty Images
Lawrence Stroll $1.8 BILLION
GLOBAL RANK: 719
CANADA, Michael Kors
Michael Kors’ financial backers sewed up their spot in the ranks after taking the fashion house public in November. Its shares are up more than 75% since the IPO. These are the same folks who helped build Tommy Hilfiger into a 1990s retail phenomenon. Through their Hong Kong company, Sportswear Holdings, the 2 now have interests in Tommy Hilfiger Asia, Karl Lagerfeld and Pepe Jeans. Chou comes from money; his father was on the billionaires list in the early 1990s. A native of Canada, Stroll resides in Switzerland. He collects vintage McLarens and Ferraris and is the owner of Canada’s Circuit Mont-Tremblant.
$2 BILLION
GLOBAL RANK: 634
US, Tesla
Bombastic Musk will tell you it’s not about the money. If it were, he wouldn’t be investing in risky plays such as electric cars, solar power and space rockets. He wants to change the world. Still, the gambles have paid off. Shares of his publicly traded electric car company, Tesla, are up 30% in the past year. Meanwhile, he is prepping 2 other companies, SolarCity and SpaceX, for IPOs in 2012 and 2013, respectively. Musk is currently aiding Paul Allen in his project to construct the world’s largest plane (wings the length of a football field, six 747 engines). In January Musk announced that he would be splitting from second wife, British actress Talulah Riley, following a very public divorce from wife Justine in 2008.
Woods Staton
$1.7 BILLION
GLOBAL RANK: 764
COLOMBIA, Fast Food
His Arcos Dorados (which means “Golden Arches” in Spanish) paid $700 million in 2007 for the rights to operate McDonald’s through-out Latin America and the Caribbean. He became a billionaire in April 2011, when the group, which now owns 1,775 in 20 countries, debuted on the New York Stock Exchange.
$1.3 BILLION
GLOBAL RANK: 960
US, 5-Hour Energy
Indian-born Bhargava had a handful of careers: Demolition man, Princeton under-grad, cab-driver, plastics executive. He even spent 12 years living in a Delhi ashram as a monk. But he struck it rich 8 years ago with 5-Hour Energy, a 2-ounce elixir of caffeine, B vitamins and taurine that sells for $3 a bottle. He’s known to be litigious, so copycat brands beware.
$1.2 BILLION
GLOBAL RANK: 1015
SINGAPORE, Food
Singapore’s “Popiah King” dropped out of school to work in his father’s grocery store, started a repair shop, then took a stake in a struggling food unit that he eventually bought. Today his Tee Yih Jia Food Manufacturing is the flagship of a privately held frozen-foods empire with estimated revenue of $1.3 billion. It sells Asian foods in 49 countries and is the world’s largest maker of the popiah skins used to make spring rolls.
$1 BILLION
GLOBAL RANK: 1153
UK, Commodities
Scion of the centuries-old European banking dynasty, Nat, just 40, is making his own name in commodities deals around the world. A long-time advisor to Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, he bought into Indonesian coal producer Bumi Resources last year; in February he survived an attempted ouster by fellow board members. He joined with ex-BP boss Tony Hayward to invest in oil via Vallares, which merged with Turkish giant Genel Energy in 2011.
Petter Stordalen
$1.2 BILLION
GLOBAL RANK: 1015
NORWAY, Hotels
Norwegian hotel magnate—his Nordic Choice Hotels operates 170 hotels—is a former Ironman racer and an outspoken environmentalist. He chained himself to the UK nuclear treatment plant Sellafield in protest for 9 hours in 2002; more recently he has rebuilt his sports car to be the world’s first bio-fuelled Ferrari.
Tilman Fertitta
$1.5 BILLION
GLOBAL RANK: 854
US, Restaurants
Real estate specialist started at dining chain Landry’s in 1986. Within 2 years he had the top job and became controlling stockholder. He took the company private in October 2010 in a deal worth $1.4 billion. These days the company operates Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. and Saltgrass Steak House. Under Landry’s umbrella are also the Golden Nugget Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Houston’s Kemah Boardwalk and the Tower of the Americas in San Antonio.
$1.1 BILLION
GLOBAL RANK: 1075
FRANCE, Advertising
Author of European best-seller The Conflict: How Modern Motherhood Undermines the Status of Women, Badinter holds a large stake in Publicis Groupe, the communications outfit founded in 1926 by her late father, Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet. Badinter has been chairman of the board since 1996.
Chase Coleman
$1.1 BILLION
GLOBAL RANK: 1075
US, Hedge Funds
Hedge fund wiz brought home $500 million last year thanks to bets on hot tech outfits like LinkedIn and Zynga. His Tiger Global fund returned a best-in-industry 45% last year. Coleman, 36, is one of the most successful of the “Tiger Cub” protégés trained in Julian Robertson’s famed Tiger Management. His former boss seeded him with $25 million to start his own fund at age 25. He is a direct descendant of Peter Stuyvesant, the last Dutch governor of New York.
Images: Stroll: Getty Images; Musk: Rebecca Cook / Reuters; Goi, Rothschild, Badinter: Getty Images
(This story appears in the 30 March, 2012 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)
