You’ll need to be worth at least $2 billion to make this list
If your impression is that the rich are getting richer, you are right, according to Forbes magazine, which this week published its list of the United States’ 400 wealthiest individuals.
To even get into the company of this elite group, you would have needed $2 billion in assets, up 18 percent over a year ago. Only five Pennsylvanians made the list. Although his wealth has been pegged by Forbes at about $1.8 billion, Pottsville brewer Dick Yuengling came up just short of making the cut.
Don’t feel sorry for the guy, though, because Forbes named him to the list of the “World’s Wealthiest Persons” this past spring. Each year, Forbes lists all billionaires in the world. Not surprisingly, Yuengling, who oversees the country’s oldest brewery, is the only person from this neck of the woods whose wealth exceeds a billion dollars.
On Forbes’ latest list of wealthiest Americans, Victoria Mars of Newtown Square, Delaware County, heir to the iconic candy company that makes M&M’s, comes out on top among Pennsylvanians with a net worth of $6.3 billion, good for 79th place among the richest 400.
She is followed by: Mary Alice Dorrance Malone of Coatesville, Chester County, Campbell Soup Co.’s largest shareholder, worth $3.3 billion, 226th place; John Middleton of Bryn Mawr, Delaware County, who made his fortune with the $3 billion sale of Altria, the former parent company of Philip Morris, worth $3 billion, 264th place; Michael Rubin, also of Bryn Mawr, majority owner and CEO of Kynetic, worth $2.9 billion, 278th place; and Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeff Lurie of Wynnewood, Montgomery County, worth $2 billion, 388th place.
None of these is even in same solar system as the wealthiest person in the country — Bill Gates of Seattle, a position he has held for 24 straight years. The wealth of the founder of Microsoft is pegged at $89 billion.
Just to give you an idea of the enormity of this number, consider that if you would put all of the $89 billion into a savings account earning a paltry 2 percent interest, just the interest would give you $1.78 billion a year. Even putting it into a savings account that pays just one-tenth of 1 percent interest, as many banks pay these days, it would still yield $89 million a year in interest.
The rest of the top 5 are Jeff Bezos, also of Seattle, founder of Amazon, $81.5 billion; Warren Buffett of Omaha, Nebraska, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, $78 billion; Mark Zuckerberg of Palo Alto, California, founder of Facebook, $71 billion, and Oracle software titan Larry Ellison of Woodside, California, $59 billion.
Forbes noted that there were 26 billionaires on the 2016 list who dropped off, but there were 22 first-timers. One of the notable names that fell from the list was Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank of Pittsburgh.
To come up with the rankings of the 400 richest Americans, Forbes started with a list of about 600 people whom it considered strong candidates, including Yuengling. Forbes looked at public records, news stories and, when possible, interviewed the candidates in person or by phone. All types of assets were taken into account, and Forbes also factored in debt.
One of the most famous losers on the list was President Donald Trump, whose net worth declined by $600 million in the past year to $3.1 billion, or 248th place.
By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com
