OC’s Wealthiest

1 DONALD BREN

Chairman

Irvine Co.

Estimated worth: $17.2 billion

A $200 million year-over-year bump in fortune would be a monumental achievement for most people.

For Orange County’s dominant businessperson, the boost makes for a relatively quiet year.

The Business Journal estimates Bren, chairman and sole shareholder of Newport Beach-based Irvine Co., is worth $17.2 billion this year, up 1.1% year-over-year.

It’s a relatively modest uptick; plenty of knowledgeable sources think our estimate is well below Bren’s true wealth, especially with the economy humming in Irvine and other West Coast markets, home to Irvine Co.’s vast base of commercial properties and land holdings.

Our estimate is above Forbes’ $16.3 billion and in line with Bloomberg’s current listing for the country’s wealthiest real estate owner.

We’ve decided to leave our estimate largely unchanged, largely due to mixed stock performances of some of Irvine Co.’s publicly traded real estate peers. Shares of REITs of comparable retail and office owners are largely flat year-over-year, if not down in value. L.A.-based office REIT Kilroy Realty Corp., with significant regional properties in its portfolio, is unchanged with a yield of 1.8%.

And multifamily REITS have fared worse.

The $24 billion REIT AvalonBay Communities Inc., with a large Southern California portfolio, is down 10% year-to-date and pays a 3.5% annual dividend. Irvine Co. has nearly 64,000 apartments in California, its biggest source of revenue.

Unlike REITs, which pay out most earnings to shareholders through dividends—a 3% payout isn’t uncommon—Bren keeps or reinvests most of Irvine Co.’s earnings, thereby boosting his wealth correspondingly. So the REIT comparison only goes so far.

Despite the relatively low increase for Bren this go-around, the estimate is our highest-ever for Orange County’s wealthiest person. We’ve boosted it nearly $7 billion over the past decade.

Location is everything in calculating his wealth, which is largely concentrated in California’s coastal markets. Irvine Co.-owned OC land remains the West Coast’s best-selling area for new homes, the high-end market in particular drawing continued interest from homebuilders.

Irvine Co.’s commercial portfolio continues to grow via development and upgrades to existing properties. Its recent office additions have been focused on the Spectrum area of Irvine, high-end properties that continue to get strong leasing activity.

Irvine Co.’s property portfolio exceeds 120 million total square feet. It includes 550 offices, 40 retail centers, 125 apartment communities, the Resort at Pelican Hill and two additional hotels, three golf clubs and five marinas.

The Business Journal conservatively estimates the properties and Irvine Ranch land and home sales bring in nearly $3 billion a year.

The privately held company is the biggest owner of offices and one of the two biggest apartment owners in California.

Along with OC, San Diego and Silicon Valley, it has sizeable holdings in Los Angeles and owns three trophy skyscrapers in Chicago. It also has the MetLife Building at 200 Park Ave. in New York.

The company’s developable land at Irvine Ranch is believed to be largely debt-free, and its commercial portfolio reportedly has a debt level at 40% or less, low for the industry.

The company has an “A+” credit rating and a stable outlook from Fitch Ratings Inc.

When it uses debt to fund properties, it does so at rock-bottom interest rates, according to recent rating agency reports.

OC holdings include Fashion Island, Newport Center, half of 185-acre UCI Research Park in Irvine, Jamboree Center, MacArthur Court, the Resort at Pelican Hill, and large parts of the 5,000-acre Irvine Spectrum.

It also owns an estimated 27,000 acres in OC, about half of which is likely developable.

Bren got his start as a homebuilder in 1958. In 1977, he was part of a group that took control of Irvine Co., the successor to the massive ranch bought by James Irvine in 1864.

Bren bought out many of his partners in 1983 for $518 million. In 1991, he paid $256 million to heiresses Joan Irvine Smith and her mother, Athalie Clarke, for their shares, and became sole owner in 1996.

Bloomberg Businessweek magazine ranks Bren as one of the country’s most generous philanthropists, estimating his lifetime giving at more than $1.3 billion. Over $265 million of that went toward education. He’s directed more than $70 million to the University of California-Irvine, in addition to giving to other schools.

Bren also set aside 57,000-plus acres—more than half of the 93,000-acre Irvine Ranch—as open space and parklands in perpetuity. The U.S. Department of the Interior and the state formally designate the lands as Natural Landmarks.

In 2014, Irvine Co. donated 2,500 acres of land in Anaheim Hills and East Orange where it once planned more than 5,000 homes. The land will be permanent open space.

— Mark Mueller

2 IGOR OLENICOFF

Owner, Founder, President

Olen Properties Corp.

Estimated worth: $4.6 billion

Orange County’s second-wealthiest businessperson and the second-biggest commercial property owner based here tweaked his portfolio over the past year.

Out: the most prominent office tower in his company’s nearly 8 million-square-foot portfolio—a 40-story skyscraper in Chicago valued at about $400 million. Olen Properties sold it this past January after nearly a dozen years of ownership, for what Olenicoff called a solid profit.

In: one of Newport Beach’s tonier offices: Newport Corporate Tower, nine-story office about a mile from John Wayne Airport. Olen paid $75.2 million for the office last year, the most it’s spent on an acquisition in OC in over a decade.

Another addition: more than 2,000 new out-of-town apartments, boosting Olen’s apartment portfolio to over 14,200 units.

The changes in product mix probably had little impact on Olenicoff’s bottom line.

Olenicoff said all of his company’s property types are performing as well as they ever have.

The past two to three years have been “absolutely blow out years,” with high occupancy levels and sizeable rental increases, both in OC and other Olen markets, he said.

We boosted our estimate of Olenicoff’s wealth by 9.5%, $400 million over Forbes’ most recent estimate.

Our estimate could be low; in addition to his vast commercial real estate portfolio, Olenicoff’s holdings reportedly include a heavy amount of stocks, various loans he’s made, and cash holdings, according to sources familiar with his operations.

We estimate his real estate portfolio tops $5 billion with debt level reportedly well below many other property owners.

Olen Properties’ office and industrial space is largely located in Orange County, while most of its apartments portfolio is outside OC.

A large portion of Olen’s local office portfolio is low- and midrise business parks. It also has two office towers in Irvine and holds loans tied to other office towers around John Wayne Airport. In recent years, it’s lent money for office and hotel projects in Los Angeles and Chicago.

A growing source of Olen’s recent deal-making was for out-of-state apartment complexes.

It’s spent over $700 million since late 2014 buying rental properties in Arizona, Florida and Georgia, many of them all-cash deals.

Other Olen assets include marinas, land, restaurants, airport hangars and a golf course. Its commercial real estate portfolio covers nearly 20 million square feet, including apartments.

Olenicoff made his fortune after his family fled Soviet Moscow and landed in America by way of Iran in 1957. He started Olen in 1973.

He’s been grooming his daughter, Natalia Ostensen, to take over the company. She’s been heading many of its acquisitions in the past few years, and is “fully involved in all aspects of the business now,” Olenicoff said.

— Mark Mueller

3 DAVID SUN

Co-Founder, COO

Kingston Technology Co.

Estimated worth: $4.4 billion

3 JOHN TU

Co-Founder, President

Kingston Technology Co.

Estimated worth: $4.4 billion

A key player in one of the biggest storylines in technology helped boost the wealth of the Kingston frontmen.

Orange County’s largest consumer electronics maker was part of a consortium of global giants in June that acquired Toshiba Corp.’s flash memory business for $18 billion.

The group, led by Boston-based Bain Capital, also include Apple Inc. in Cupertino, South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix Inc., Dell in Round Rock, Texas, and Seagate Technology PLC, also based in Cupertino.

In May, Chinese regulators approved the bid for Toshiba’s lucrative business unit, effectively clearing the last hurdle of the transaction, which required approvals from regulators around the world, and ending months of drama.

The buy will help Kingston, a big seller of USB, flash and other storage drives, shore up supply of NAND flash for years. The key memory component is the most popular rewritable memory chip used in USB drives, cameras, iPods, smartphones, tablets and other devices.

We’ve increased Sun and Tu’s wealth estimates nearly 5% over a year ago, largely based on the Toshiba play, with a nod to Kingston’s growing presence in the booming esports segment; personal investments; and the company’s strong position in the solid-state drive market.

Kingston consumer memory products bring in a lot of cash, but some are maturing, reflecting a slight 1.5% increase in estimated sales to $6.7 billion last year.

Western Digital Corp.’s $19 billion buy in 2016 of SanDisk Corp. in Milpitas established a better baseline to assess Kingston’s value. Both companies compete heavily in the consumer market of USB and solid-state drives, a segment that accounts for less than half of Kingston’s estimated annual revenue.

Kingston also competes in some segments with chipmaker Micron Technology Inc. The Idaho-based publicly traded firm’s market value has skyrocketed 79% in the past 12 months, solidifying its strong position in advanced chips and related technology, a segment outside of Kingston’s core business of consumer storage and gaming accessories.

Kingston is one of the biggest esports backers, sponsoring about 30 competitive video gaming teams. Brand ambassadors include NBA stars Gordon Hayward, Joel Embiid and point guard De’Aaron Fox, and NFL wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster.

In October, its HyperX gaming unit netted its first NBA product endorsement deal when it was named the Philadelphia 76ers’ official headset partner. It followed up the deal with a similar one with the Dallas Mavericks and its future NBA 2K League esports team, a first for HyperX.

The headset line launched in 2014 and has sold over 5 million units.

Sun and Tu are estimated to own the vast majority of the company.

They’re on their second fortunes, co-founding memory products maker Camintonn in the 1980s and selling it to former Irvine computer maker AST Research Inc. They left AST to start Kingston after losing millions in Camintonn proceeds in the 1987 stock market crash.

They famously sold 80% of Kingston to Japan-based SoftBank Group Corp. for $1.5 billion in 1996 and generously shared proceeds with employees. The founders bought their company back in 1999 for just $450 million.

Tu, originally from China, moved to the U.S. in 1972. He once worked as a cook in his uncle’s Chinese restaurant and as an apprentice welder while living in Germany as a young man.

Sun, who was born in Taiwan, came to the U.S. in 1977.

Tu is a music devotee whose JT & Friends band plays benefits.

— Chris Casacchia

5 HENRY SAMUELI

Chief Technical Officer

Broadcom Inc.

Estimated worth: $4.1 billion

The Samuelis continued their giving pledge, gifting $200 million to the University of California-Irvine in September in one of the largest donations to a U.S. public university.

About $55 million will build a home for the Susan and Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences, and the rest will go into a permanent endowment for faculty recruitment, student scholarships and other initiatives, including “investigations of new healthcare approaches,” according to UCI.

Susan, who serves on the Orangewood Foundation board, established the Susan Samueli Center for Integrative Medicine at UCI in 2001.

On July 16, UCI broke ground on a $120 million Interdisciplinary Science & Engineering Building enabled by the Samuelis’ gift of $30 million.

Giving extended beyond academia as the couple invested more than $10 million in Honda Center upgrades before the NHL season, including an expanded main concourse, team store, new restaurants and a multimillion-dollar lighting system.

We estimate the net worth of the co-founder of Irvine chipmaker Broadcom dropped 4.7% over the past year. That takes into account philanthropic efforts and rocky performance of Broadcom, which failed to acquire San Diego rival Qualcomm Inc. and hasn’t mustered much support on Wall Street for its recently announced $18.9 billion cash deal for software maker CA Technologies Inc.

Broadcom shares are down about 17% in the past year from $255 to $210 and a market cap of $91 billion, down from $109 billion.

Samueli, who went all in on the $121 billion Qualcomm hostile takeover attempt, holds 254,338 shares of Broadcom stock worth roughly $53.1 million.

President Donald Trump killed the bid in March, citing national security concerns related to 5G development. Numerous reports indicated Qualcomm shareholders wanted the deal and were opting for Broadcom’s slate of directors by a wide margin when it got scotched.

Samueli controlled about 24 million Broadcom shares, which accounted for less than half of his wealth, by our estimate, before Avago Technologies acquired the Irvine chipmaker in early 2016 for $37 billion, renaming it to Broadcom Inc.

In April, the company re-incorporated in the U.S. and designated San Jose serves as its operational headquarters.

Samueli’s sold more than $1.4 billion in shares since Broadcom went public in 1998.

He’s more than a few years removed as the face of Broadcom, ceding the mantle to Chief Executive Hock Tan, who’s crafted an aggressive roll-up and divestment strategy.

Part of Samueli’s wealth derives from ownership of the Anaheim Ducks, which were swept in the first round of the playoffs by the San Jose Sharks. He paid $70 million for the hockey club in 2005. In December, Forbes valued the franchise at $460 million, up from $415 million in 2016, ranking 16th in the 31-team league. It pulled in an estimated $136 million in revenue last year.

Samueli also owns Anaheim Arena Management LLC, which operates the city-owned Honda Center, the Ducks’ home ice.

The couple owns a stake in KDOC-TV in Anaheim, which netted $66 million in 2017’s spectrum sale to the FCC.

— Chris Casacchia

6 JAMES JANNARD

Founder,

Oakley Inc., Red Digital Cinema Camera Co.

Estimated worth: $3.5 billion

The man who built global brands Red Digital Cinema Camera Co. in Irvine, and Foothill Ranch-based Oakley Inc. is about to release Hydrogen One, a smartphone that enables users to see multidimensional content without headgear.

“I don’t do normal stuff,” Jannard said in a recent interview of his motivation to pursue the project. “I would never get in the cellphone business and do something common or like everybody else—I’d kill myself before that. The trick is to see how many surprises you can deliver, things that people never imagined. For us, it is the display technology, the audio, the form factor, and the modularity. It’s a combination of things that really differentiate Hydrogen [One] from the rest of the industry.”

The inventor, a USC School of Pharmacy dropout who holds about 90 patents, founded Oakley in 1975. He took the company public in 1995 and sold it to Italy-based Luxottica Group SPA in 2007 for $2.1 billion. Jannard’s share amounted to about $1.3 billion. He launched Red Digital in 2005, and two years later released the Red One, “a 4K camera for $20K,” while competitor Sony was selling digital cinema cameras for about $200,000 apiece. He bought Ren-Mar Studios in Hollywood in 2010 and renamed it Red Studios.

Directors Peter Jackson, Ridley Scott and James Cameron are among Red customers, and the cameras have claimed many blockbusters, including “The Hobbit,” “Transformers,” “Martian” and “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.”

Red Digital’s sales are estimated at well over $300 million, its workforce of 500 engaged in manufacturing at its Irvine Spectrum headquarters; the Red Studios facility and Hollywood store; Red’s United Kingdom, Germany, India and China offices; and retail stores in New York and Miami.

Jannard turned over the reins to President Jarred Land in 2013 to focus on Hydrogen One. He kept the project under wraps until last summer, and in September announced an investment in Leia Inc., a Cupertino-based firm that’s providing light-field technology for the phone’s screen. He also invested in A3D, whose algorithm converts Hydrogen’s audio into “expansive, 360-degree sound, with or without headphones.” The Android phone also has 4K cameras that can produce 3D and 4V content; a headphone jack; external SIM and MicroSD card slots; and a modular system that enables the addition of an extended battery and other components. And that’s not all—Hydrogen, when paired with RED Digital’s yet-to-be-released prosumer camera, serves as a 3D viewfinder.

Jannard is married to Misha and has four children and 14 grandchildren. He splits his time between Washington state, Las Vegas and Los Angeles, and avidly supports wildlife conservation, including Mission Blue and the African Wildlife Foundation.

We’re estimating his wealth grew 9.4%. Hat tricks are rare in hockey and business. But with his track record of creating “hero-product” companies, RED Hydrogen One becoming No. 3 seems a solid bet, and surely he’s created value in advance of sales, which being soon—that and Red Digital Camera revenue growth account for our boost of his net worth.

— Mediha DiMartino

7 HENRY T. NICHOLAS III

Co-Founder

Broadcom Corp.

Estimated worth: $3.3 billion

It was another quiet year on the business front for Nicholas, who celebrated the 10th anniversary of his beloved academic nonprofit, Nicholas Academic Centers.

We dropped his wealth by 5.7% due to the recent dip in Broadcom shares.

Nicholas, who established Broadcom in 1991 in a spare bedroom of his Redondo Beach home with fellow Wealthiest Henry Samueli, got a big boost in 2016 when Avago Technologies acquired Broadcom for $37 billion. The sale added about $1 billion to his net worth.

Nicholas is sole trustee of the Nicholas Technology Holding Trust, which held about $1.8 billion in Broadcom stock when the sale closed.

For the past eight years, he hasn’t sold shares of Broadcom, which kept its name after the buy but not its ticker symbol. It’s a leading designer of communication chips that go into smartphones, computers, consumer electronics, and broadband and data center equipment. He’d sold an estimated $1.2 billion in shares since the company went public in 1998.

Broadcom (Nasdaq: AVGO) posted $17.6 billion in sales in its last fiscal year and boasts a recent market value of nearly $91 billion.

Philanthropy and victims’ rights remain Nicholas’ top priorities.

Nicholas Academic Centers, co-founded with retired Orange County Superior Court Judge Jack Mandel, has three centers in Santa Ana that have graduated more than 1,000 underserved, primarily Latino students in the Santa Ana Unified School District. Graduates have received about $60 million in scholarships, attending top schools, such as Stanford, Harvard, Columbia and Dartmouth.

In March, Nicholas donated $40,000 to ensure the men’s and women’s crew teams at the University of California-Irvine participated in the American Collegiate Rowing Association National Championship Regatta in May in Georgia.

He’s long supported the UCI crew, donating more than $1 million to the program.

His quest to improve victims’ rights following the 1983 murder of younger sister, Marsalee, is making strides across the country. Known as “Marsy’s Law,” its components have been incorporated into state constitutions in California—where voters ratified the initiative by a 54-46 margin over the objection of nearly every major newspaper editorial board—Illinois, North Dakota, South Dakota and Ohio. The law will be on November ballots in Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Nevada, North Carolina and Oklahoma. Nicholas said he hopes that by year-end, victim’s rights protections will be in place for more than a third of Americans.

Marsy’s Law protects victims and their families through the legal process, from the defendant’s trial to restitution to parole or other post-judgment release decisions.

— Chris Casacchia

8 GEORGE ARGYROS

Chairman, Chief Executive

Arnel & Affiliates

Founding Partner

Westar Capital LLC

Estimated worth: $2.5 billion

Argyros and his family’s philanthropic work took center stage in Orange County over the past year, in more ways than one.

Costa Mesa’s Segerstrom Center for the Arts opened its new Julianne and George Argyros Plaza and Center for Dance and Innovation last October. The 56,100-square foot public square, which is used for a variety of family-friendly entertainment, is the most recent big addition to OC’s main arts center.

It was the result of a $15 million donation from the Argyros family, which has endowed other parts of the center over the years.

The Argyros’ recent giving also extends to Los Angeles. This January the family’s foundation gave a $7.5 million gift that’s used toward the renovation of the Los Angeles Coliseum; a peristyle plaza will get the couple’s name.

Other notable donations of late include a $500,000 grant, announced this month, to Yellowstone National Park. The money will be used to help protect the native cutthroat trout population. Argyros’ wife, Julia, is a big fan of fly fishing.

It takes money to give away money, and the Argyros family appears to have plenty of the former, based on its recent giving.

We’ve estimated Argyros, one of OC’s richest real estate owners, and long one of its most politically-connected businessmen, to be worth $2.5 billion this year. That’s a modest increase over our year-ago estimate of $2.4 billion.

The boost reflects likely gains for Argyros’ stock holdings and his extensive commercial real estate portfolio.

Our estimate is slightly above that of Forbes, which gives him a $2.4 billion real-time valuation as of mid-July.

Argyros owns Costa Mesa-based Arnel & Affiliates, a development and investment company he started in 1968. Arnel has close to 5,500 apartments in its portfolio; about 4,500 of those units are reported to be in Orange County.

The company also owns some 2 million square feet of office, industrial and retail space in and around OC.

Argyros, the former owner of the Seattle Mariners baseball team—drafted Ken Griffey Jr., 1987—and one-time partner of fellow OC’s Wealthiest member William Lyon in AirCal—also counts a large stock portfolio, in addition to other investments, much of that through Costa Mesa’s Westar Capital LLC, his family’s investment firm.

Argyros has taken a step back in day-to-day management of his family holdings in recent years, with Julia assuming more responsibilities, including the running of Arnel.

Other beneficiaries of his family’s foundation over the years include Chapman University, the Alzheimer’s Association, Children’s Hospital of Orange County, Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian, the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum and numerous other local causes.

Prior Honors: Horatio Alger Award 1993; Ellis Island Medal of Honor 2001; U.S. Ambassador to Spain 2001-2005.

Last October, Argyros was awarded Chapman’s highest award of distinction, the Bert C. Williams Lifetime Service Award, as part of the school’s annual Distinguished Alumni Awards.

—Mark Mueller

8 SEGERSTROM FAMILY

C.J. Segerstrom & Sons

HTS Management

Estimated worth: $2.5 billion

Different branches of the Segerstrom family operate C.J. Segerstrom & Sons and HTS Management, real estate development and management firms that run some of Costa Mesa’s most valuable commercial properties.

Stakeholders in the family’s varied business interests, propelled by the late Henry Segerstrom, include his widow, Elizabeth, who along with Sandra “Sandy” Segerstrom Daniels, daughter of Henry’s cousin Harold and his wife, Jeanette, serves as managing partner.

Anton, one of Henry’s three children from first wife Yvonne de Chavigny Segerstrom, is also a partner in the family business.

The Segerstroms, who started out as lima bean farmers, developed South Coast Plaza, a 2.8-million-square-foot shopping center in Costa Mesa that posted $1.8 billion in taxable sales last year.

In addition to SCP, the family-run business also owns and operates five office properties on the opposite side of Bristol Street under the Office of South Coast Plaza banner. The Plaza, Center and Park towers are three of the city’s tallest and highest-end office buildings. They total more than 1.3 million square feet and house large law firms, accountant and other professional services firms, including Plaza Tower charter tenant IBM Corp., which just renewed 70,640 square feet on the lower floors.

Each building has a different ownership structure and investors, according to sources. The family also owns hundreds of acres near the San Diego (405) Freeway in Costa Mesa and Santa Ana, some of which remains developable and could likely sell for at least $3 million an acre if the family ever opted to sell.

The partnership is building a 100,000-square-foot industrial property on its land at Harbor Gateway business park that’s already been leased to an area manufacturer. Sources tell us Costa Mesa’s 2016 voter-approved Measure Y, a slow-growth initiative, won’t crimp land that gets developed in the near term, due to prior entitlements.

Last year, a South Coast Plaza affiliate completed the buyback of several properties at the mall from Sears, the troubled Hoffman Estates, Ill.-based retail giant.

The $600-per-square-foot price values the shopping center at about $1.67 billion, though most observers estimate OC’s most valuable mall at a much higher price.

Newport Beach-based commercial real estate research firm Green Street Advisors LLC estimated South Coast Plaza value at about $3 billion in 2016. If we consider $2 billion as a fair midpoint and add another $500 million for the office buildings and land, we get our estimate of the family’s net worth.

— Mediha DiMartino and Mark Mueller

10 RODNEY SACKS

Chairman, Chief Executive

Monster Beverage Corp.

Estimated worth: $2.3 billion

HILTON H. SCHLOSBERG

President, COO, CFO

Monster Beverage Corp.

Estimated worth: $2.3 billion

Aluminum tariffs could end up hitting the bottom line of Corona-based Monster Beverage Corp.’s top two executives and shareholders, but rising Orange County office property valuations would likely minimize any losses of the billionaire duo.

We’ve boosted the estimated fortunes of Sacks and Schlosberg by 2.2%, well above the $1.9 billion real-time estimate Forbes lists for the Monster men. Forbes’ figure is largely based on the value of Monster Beverage, a maker of revved-up energy drinks that’s now worth about $34.5 billion.

Monster shares are up about 15% year-over-year but have been on a roller coaster over the past few months amid worries about the impact of the U.S. trade war with China.

The men said in June that they may need to raise their products’ prices to take new tariffs into account, particularly on the aluminum used to make their beverage cans.

Sachs and Schlosberg’s combined holdings in their main line of business were worth nearly $5 billion, based on Monster’s latest proxy statement in April.

The Business Journal is also factoring in the partners’ extensive area real estate holdings, whose valuation continues to rise, thanks to a strong local office market.

They’ve quickly built a portfolio ranking among the area’s largest held by private commercial real estate investors, having been involved in office purchases here valued at more than $400 million over the past three years, according to Business Journal data.

Recent deals include last year’s $58 million buy of 4400 MacArthur Blvd., a nine-story office in Newport Beach near John Wayne Airport.

Other local holdings include office properties in Irvine, Santa Ana, Orange and Yorba Linda. Most of their recent investments were made in ventures with Irvine-based real estate investment group Greenlaw Partners.

The immigrants from South Africa entered the beverage business in 1992 with the purchase of Anaheim-based Hansen Natural Corp. Sacks had left behind a career with one the biggest law firms in Johannesburg to seek his fortune in the U.S. Schlosberg, with experience in packaging, had moved to the U.K.

The two bought a public company just as the “New Age” category of waters, flavored drinks and other alternatives to Coke and other sodas were emerging. Energy drinks, in particular, proved a source of growth.

Coca-Cola paid $2.15 billion for 16.7% of the company in 2015, validating their business strategy.

Sacks is reported to have a house in Laguna Beach, and Schlosberg keeps a Big Canyon address.

— Mark Mueller

12 BILL GROSS

Portfolio Manager

Janus Henderson Group PLC

Estimated worth: $2.2 billion

It hasn’t been the best of years for Gross.

His divorce last year from Sue Gross created sensational stories in the New York Post and the Los Angeles Times about family cats in distress, a fake Picasso and a mysterious car crash involving a “V12-powered” Mercedes Benz and private detectives.

To make matters worse, assets at his Global Unconstrained Bond Fund (JUCIX) at Janus Henderson Global fell to $1.7 billion from $2.5 billion a year earlier. Last year, the fund reported a 2.43% gain, underperforming its benchmark and category. In the first half this year, it’s down 6.25%, with a No. 98 rank on Morningstar. On one day alone, his fund dropped 3%, an extraordinary decline for a bond fund that took the big hit because investors fled Italian bonds for the safety of German bonds.

It’s quite a comedown for the co-founder of Newport Beach’s Pacific Investment Management Co. (PIMCO), one of the world’s largest asset managers with $1.7 trillion under management.

Gross was an investing legend, the first three-time winner of Morningstar’s prestigious Fixed Income Manager of the Year and Manager of the Decade for 2000-09. He managed the Total Return Fund, which was the largest bond fund in the world with $293 billion in assets at its high-water mark, prior to his abrupt acrimonious departure from PIMCO in 2014.

The two sides settled last year, with PIMCO reportedly giving Gross $81 million that he donated to charity. The New York Times piled on this year, saying the 74-year-old Gross “opted for revenge” against PIMCO instead of retiring.

Under California law, the couple, who were married 31 years, are supposed to split assets in half. We estimate Sue obtained a quarter of the assets, or about $700 million of the $2.7 billion he was worth a year ago (see separate article).

Sue got the three-house compound in the exclusive Laguna Beach community of Irvine Cove, but Bill’s her new neighbor, reportedly paying $35.8M in an off-market deal this month for a home at 2471 Riviera Dr.—considered the priciest sale in Irvine Cove—one of only five homes in the enclave with direct beach access. We estimate “The Bond King’s” current worth at $2.2 billion assuming Gross has a mix of equities and other asset classes like real estate to offset the weak performance of his bond fund, which at one time was reported to have $700 million of his personal assets.

The Grosses, big philanthropists in Orange County and beyond, have planned to ultimately give away all of their wealth.

Gross previously said Sue was in charge of giving for their charity, which has donated more than $800 million over the years, including $40 million to create a school of nursing at the University of California-Irvine, $38 million to Doctors Without Borders, and $23.5 million to his alma mater, Duke University.

Gross has what some call “the greatest stamp collection ever” worth about $40 million. He is scheduled to sell portions of it later this year. The proceeds will go to charities like Doctors Without Borders and the Millennial Villages Project.

—Peter J. Brennan

13 ARTURO R. MORENO

Owner

Angels Baseball LP

Estimated worth: $2.1 billion

As the value of MLB teams keeps rising, so does Moreno’s wealth.

But his Angels are moving in the opposite direction on the field, likely missing the playoffs for the eighth time in nine years, despite another MVP-caliber season for the game’s best player, Mike Trout.

The club entered the second half of the year one game above .500 and nine games back from a wildcard playoff berth.

We estimate the wealth of the 16-year owner of one of OC’s three major professional sports franchises is up 5% over the past year.

In April, Forbes increased the Angels’ worth to $1.8 billion, up 3% year-over-year. The franchise held its No. 8 ranking from a year earlier, when it was valued at $1.75 billion.

In the past two years, the franchise has spent over $20 million on stadium improvements, including a state-of-the-art scoreboard.

The market is home to 13.1 million people, accounting for nearly 46% of the team’s value. Baseball-analytics website fangraphs.com says the Halos’ 2016 TV take of $118 million was second only to freeway neighbor the L.A. Dodgers at $204 million with its 100%-owned SportsNet LA. Dodger games remain a distribution challenge for rights owner Time Warner, now called Spectrum.

Moreno owns 25% of his TV venture with Fox Sports, according to FanGraphs.

The Angels generated annual revenue of $334 million and operating income of $25 million last year, according to Forbes.

The 25-man roster is about $190 million, according to spotrac.com. That ranks sixth in baseball, sandwiched between the Washington Nationals and New York Yankees.

The franchise added about $13.7 million to payroll this season, highlighted by the free-agency signing of Japanese star Shohei Ohtani, who has electrified crowds on the mound and in the batter box, the first two-way player since Babe Ruth. Ohtani’s missed close to half of the games due to injuries, but he avoided surgery on his pitching elbow and will soon start throwing. The likelihood, as Moreno’s second-most valuable player asset, is that Ohtani won’t pitch this year. It’s unclear about the future, though spring training could provide a litmus test.

The club, acquired in 2003 from Walt Disney Co. for $184 million, is Moreno’s chief asset.

He’s on his second fortune—the first came from Outdoor Systems, a billboard company he founded with partner and Angels minority investor Bill Levine, taking it public in 1996 and selling to Viacom in 1999 for $8.7 billion in stock.

He has another media property in his portfolio—KLAA 830 AM, which broadcasts the team’s games, along with Anaheim Ducks hockey, Notre Dame Football and ESPN programming.

Moreno and wife, Carole, are heavily involved in local charities and other causes. The Angels Baseball Foundation has distributed more than $8.8 million to charitable programs throughout Southern California. In addition, they founded the Angels Scholars Program in 2016. It has 39 students at 27 universities and colleges throughout the country, some receiving substantial financial aid, others receiving full scholarships.

—Chris Casacchia

14 ANTHONY HSIEH

Founder, Chief Executive

loanDepot.com LLC

Estimated worth: $2 billion

The Taiwan native, raised in Fullerton, is now on his third successful company in the mortgage industry.

He sold loandirect.com, which he said was the world’s first internet-based financial services company, in 2001 to E-Trade Financial Corp. for shares then worth about $51.5 million. He then founded homeloancenter.com, selling it for an undisclosed price to IAC/Interactive Corp., which merged it into Charlotte, N.C.-based LendingTree LLC.

His big home run is loanDepot, which he began in 2010 with the backing of Parthenon Capital Partners, a growth-stage, private-equity firm with an affinity for financial services companies.

LoanDepot, attempted an initial public offering in 2015, indicating a value of $2.6 billion, or about 2.8 times sales, which at the time were about $930 million in the trailing 12 months.

When asked if his company is still worth that amount, Hsieh said, “I sure hope it’s higher.” He pointed out sales have climbed to $1.3 billion last year.

Its valuation is complicated because the mortgage industry is generating fewer mortgages due to a flattening yield curve and rising interest-rate environment. Rival Nationstar Mortgage Holdings Inc., a publicly traded company that generates more revenue from servicing mortgages than originating them, has a price-to-sales under one time sales.

On the other hand, fintech GreenSky LLC., which lends to home contractors, has a $3.8 billion market cap, or 11 times sales. LoanDepot, which had 2017 sales four times as large as GreenSky’s, has also set up a unit to enter the space.

Hsieh has invested at least $80 million in technology to set his company up as a fintech that will beat competitors used to the old methods. In the first quarter, it reported originations growing 13% year-over-year while the industry fell 2.6%. That might explain the rumors about Amazon.com approaching loanDepot, a rumor that Hsieh declined to comment on.

If we use the same 2.8 times sales metric as 2015, the company is valued at $3.64 billion based on 2017 sales. That would make Hsieh’s 51.5% stake worth $1.87 billion.

Add in $100 million for his two prior business successes, and he could be worth $2 billion.

See our page 1 story on how Hsieh feels about being a billionaire and about the Amazon rumors.

— Peter J. Brennan

14 VINCENT ‘VINNY’ SMITH

Founder

Toba Capital

Former Chief Executive

Quest Software

Estimated worth: $2 billion

Another lucrative exit, increased deal flow and a big stake in a hot, publicly traded local software maker have pushed Smith’s wealth to a new benchmark.

His Newport Beach-based Toba Capital cashed out in September when SecureAuth Corp. agreed to a $200 million sale to El Segundo-based private equity firm K1 Investment Management.  

Toba, OC’s largest venture capital firm, had a 45% stake in the Irvine developer of security software.

Smith is bullish on Irvine analytics software maker Alteryx Inc., another Toba home run, running higher since its initial public offering last year, Toba still holds close to a 5% stake.

The company’s shares have tripled since last May’s debut to $44 and a market cap of $2.7 billion. Toba, along with Smith’s nonprofit Teach a Man to Fish Foundation, invested less than $10 million in Alteryx for a stake now worth about $130 million. He also brought in New York-based Insight Venture Partners, which he co-founded in the 1990s, as lead Alteryx investor.

Toba continues an aggressive investment strategy, boosting its evergreen fund past $1 billion in new and follow-on capital since its 2012 launch.

Software companies, particularly in artificial intelligence, security and healthcare, comprise the majority of its portfolio, now over 75 companies. New areas of emphasis include e-commerce, direct-to-consumer, fintech, and consumer packaged goods.

Real estate is also an important asset.

The Business Journal bumped up Smith’s estimated wealth from $1.5 billion, based largely on the exit, Alteryx’ run-up and Toba’s expanding portfolio, which boosted investment $200 million in the past year, adding more than 20 portfolio companies amid a focus on “impact investing” and an effort to donate half the profits of all gains in perpetuity to charitable foundations and causes.

Toba has notched more than nine big exits since launching the evergreen fund, including six sales netting it at least $100 million. 

Smith, through his personal funds and the foundation, remains active in public equities, committing an additional $100 million in assets this year, predominantly to technology-focused investment managers.   

The majority of his wealth stems from the nearly $1 billion he netted in 2012 on the $2.4 billion sale of Quest Software to Dell. He owned 34%.

Smith earmarked part of the windfall to establish Toba with former Quest colleagues. In the last 12 months the firm deployed over $60 million into Southern California, including Santa Monica-based Patient Pop Inc., the leading provider of patient-engagement productivity tools. Other seed-round deals include Seal Software, Deliveroo, Robinhood, Coupang, Clover Health, Intarcia Therapeutics and Indigo Agriculture.

His lead investment in a real estate partnership with Integral Communities, master developer of a 4,700-home community called Tracy Hills, is off to a good start, selling out 1,100-plus homes in the first phase.

The hillside community is about 50 miles east of San Francisco.

Smith supports over 100 charities, including Orphaned Starfish, which provides after-school training in orphanages and shelters in 25 Latin American locations and the Philippines. He’s begun to focus heavily on cancer research. Significant donations have been made to Orange County Community Foundation. He started his career at Oracle in 1986 after graduating from the University of Delaware, where he was on the wrestling team. In 1992, he started San Francisco-based Patrol Software with an Oracle colleague. BMC Software Inc. bought Patrol in 1994 for an estimated $33.7 million.

—Chris Casacchia

16 PAUL MERAGE

Chairman

MIG Management Services LLC

Estimated worth: $1.9 billion

It’s good to have your fingers in both the stock market and real estate.

Just ask Merage, the entrepreneur whose name graces the University of California-Irvine’s business school.

His nephew Greg manages the MIG Real Estate arm, which focuses on acquiring and managing commercial, office, hospitality and multifamily properties. Since 2009, MIG Real Estate has acquired over 10 million square feet of investment properties in Arizona, California, Texas and other states.

In May, the MIG website said the real estate portfolio was worth about $1.8 billion; last week, it valued it at “more than $2 billion.”

Merage’s son Richard manages MIG Capital, which had $840.3 million in assets as of December. Barron’s Penta Top 100 Hedge Funds ranked it 21st last year, saying it was an equity long/short fund with a three-year compounded return of 13.6% as of 2016.

Merage, who was born in Iran during World War II and moved to the U.S. as a teenager, made his wealth by co-founding Chef American Inc. in 1975 with brother David. They grew it into a leading manufacturer of frozen food products, including Hot Pockets. The company had about $750 million in sales and 1,800 workers by the time they sold it in 2002 for $2.6 billion to Nestlé.

His philanthropy includes an emphasis on education. He gave a $30 million gift in 2005 to UCI’s business school. The Paul & Elisabeth Merage Family Foundation, which had $39.7 million in assets in 2016, has been a big backer of the El Sol Science and Arts Academy charter school in Santa Ana.

Merage has also given to Orange County Community Foundation, supports Israeli entrepreneurs, and promotes relationship building between the U.S. and Israel through the Merage Institute.

Considering that in the trailing 12 months ended in June, the S&P 500 has risen 14% and the real estate market has appreciated almost double digits, we’ve upped our estimate by 12%.

— Peter J. Brennan

17 ANNE CATHERINE GETTY EARHART

Heiress, Philanthropist

Estimated worth: $1.4 billion

17 CAROLINE MARIE GETTY

Heiress, Philanthropist

Estimated worth: $1.4 billion

The sisters, granddaughters of late oil tycoon J. Paul Getty, stay out of the public eye and give to environmental and left-of-center political causes.

Their grandfather made his first million in 1916 in Oklahoma oil and became a billionaire from work in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in the 1940s and 1950s. Other holdings included aircraft maker Spartan.

Some news reports at the time said he was the world’s wealthiest man.

The sisters were born in the 1950s to J. Paul’s eldest son, George Franklin Getty II.

J. Paul died in 1976, leaving $700 million to fund the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, and a family fortune disputed for nine years by dozens of descendants. It included 40% of Getty Oil; a family trust in 1984 sold that to Texaco for $4 billion. The museum also got a boost, selling its 12% holdings as part of Texaco’s takeover.

Anne and Caroline each received about $750 million from the will and $400 million apiece from the Texaco deal.

Some of Anne’s giving flows through the Marisla Foundation in Laguna Beach, for her daughter Sara’s middle name—which had $44.2 million in assets at the end of 2016, according to GuideStar USA.

The foundation in 2016 said it would give $100 million over five years to support projects to end overfishing, control plastic pollution, and protect marine mammals, according to a U.S. State Department report. Marisla gave money to fight the San Joaquin Hills (73) Toll Road in the 1990s and has backed the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Individually or through Marisla, Earhart has given to political groups, including Media Matters, the Center for American Progress, American Bridge 21st Century SuperPAC, and Priorities USA Action, and to Democrats running for office, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Al Franken and Gov. Jerry Brown.

Caroline is even less in the limelight than her older sister; she’s also an environmental activist and has served on boards and councils of the Wilderness Society, World Wildlife Fund and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation.

We’ve taken their wealth up marginally from $1.35 billion, in line with modest trust fund investing.

— Paul Hughes

17 LYNSI SNYDER

Owner, President

In-N-Out Burger Inc.

Estimated worth: $1.4 billion

Snyder turned 35 last year and took over 96% ownership of the burger chain founded in 1948 by her paternal grandparents, Harry and Esther Snyder.

The 325-store chain posted $908 million in revenue last year, up 12.5% year-over-year. We’ve increased our estimate of Snyder’s wealth by 1,300% from $100 million, based on a potential price she would get for the iconic brand.

In-N-Out owns all of its stores, and Synder is on record vowing that it will remain a private company.

The chain competes in the “quick service restaurants-plus” category that includes Atlanta-based Chick-fil-A, El Pollo Loco Inc. in Costa Mesa, and others that offer food deemed fresher and of better quality than fast-food purveyors but at a lower price point than fast-casual chains.

Snyder is married to Sean Ellingson and has four children. The couple runs the Army of Love foundation, which strives to “unite and equip the body of Christ to minister and bring healing to broken-hearted and hurting people through Christ’s love and by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

On the foundation’s webpage, she described herself as “a cute, precocious blond little girl with a big heart” who “enjoyed a close relationship with her father.” She also mentions “a void” that she “tried to fill with unhealthy relationships and other worldly pursuits” after his death in 1999 from an overdose of painkillers. She took over the president’s role in 2010 from Mark Taylor, who’d served as president since her grandmother’s death in 2006.

In December, Snyder put her 10-bedroom, 16-bath estate up for sale for nearly $20 million. She bought the 18,687-square-foot home in the San Gabriel Valley—where In-N-Out originated—from former Dodgers third baseman Adrián Beltré in 2012. It was briefly delisted in June and put back on the market this month.

— Mediha DiMartino

20 RON SIMON

Founder

RSI Holding LLC

Estimated worth: $1.2 billion

Simon sold.

For much of the past two years, Simon—born into the Great Depression in Los Angeles to a Russian mother and an English cabinet-making father—bolstered land holdings of his developer-homebuilder RSI Communities. Last year’s Wealthiest ranking estimated its position at 8,000 lots, up from 3,000 a year earlier.

At the time of Simon’s $460 million sale of the company in March to Newport Beach-based William Lyon Homes, it had 11,000 lots in growing Sunbelt markets, including Texas. A general rule for homebuilder acquisitions is that the buyer wants inventory in hot markets—consider Lennar’s recent deal for California-strong CalAtlantic Group—and it was met here. The purchase marked Lyon’s entry into the Lone Star State and boosted companywide lot holdings by 63% to 28,500—a dozen years of inventory at current sales levels for Lyon-RSI combined.

In December, Simon had sold the other big entity in holding company RSI Home Products Inc. for $1.1 billion to Winchester, Va.-based American Woodmark Corp., about half of it in debt and half in cash and stock.

American Woodmark shares jumped 30% on the deal but have settled to prepurchase levels for a $1.5 billion market cap.

Before the cash-out, Simon’s combined firms tracked at about $800 million in annual revenue and 4,500 employees.

Simon started RSI Communities in 2008 and got control of RSI Home Products in 2013, the latter via a $323 million buyout of Toronto equity partner Onex Corp. The cabinet maker launched in the late 1980s after the 1987 sale of his father’s firm, Perma-Bilt Industries, which Simon built into one of the largest U.S. cabinet makers.

We’re taking his wealth up a healthy 20% over last year on the basis of those moves.

Word is Simon plans to turn his talents to private equity investing and put more time and treasure toward various charities that back educational, housing and food causes. A big element of those is the Simon Scholars Program at about 20 local high schools—1,300 scholarships and counting, valued at more than $40 million. Add to that the Simon STEM Scholarship Program started in 2015, four students each year from Orange High School receiving a full scholarship to Chapman University to purse a STEM-area degree.

Simon’s largesse has also trained food truck and restaurant operators. Observers said he’s helped at least 1,000 kids, many from underserved communities.

— Paul Hughes

20 C. FREDERICK ‘FRED’ TAYLOR

Co-Founder, Partner

TGS Management LLC

Estimated worth: $1.2 billion

Taylor, the T in TGS, debuted on our Wealthiest List last year. He and his partners fairly made their global debuts in a 2014 Bloomberg News story: “The $13 billion Mystery Angels.” The story detailed how the three hedge fund partners, wildly successful investors and equally skillful at staying “under-the-radar,” had funded no less than $13 billion in charitable trusts.

How much is $13 billion? Even in an era where we have our first 12-figure bank account—Jeff Bezos, $153 billion—the charitable trusts funded by the TGS founders qualify as the fourth-largest U.S. charity. And theirs isn’t a centuries-old Rockefeller or Ford Foundation—TGS opened for business in 1989.

TGS is one of the pioneering firms in quantitative investing, its practitioners popularly known as quants. The firm employs researchers and scientists, “winners of national and international competitions in math, physics, and informatics, former professors,” to operate a hedge fund and “beat the stock market.”

It operates from Irvine and Princeton, N.J., Taylor in Irvine and Andrew Schechtel in Princeton. David Gelbaum retired in 2002.

The partners are disciples of South County resident and “Man For All Markets” Edward O. Thorp, founder of one of the world’s first quantitative hedge funds, Princeton-Newport Partners, in 1969. Thorp told BusinessWeek that the men opened a hedge fund in 1989, and practiced a form of statistical arbitrage, seeking to profit from the tendency of recently fallen stocks to rise, and the recently risen to fall.

Quantitative trading involves the use of computer algorithms based on mathematical models to capitalize on trading opportunities. Taylor and partners are known as much for their secrecy—the trade website EFinancialCareers quoted an applicant describing the firm’s location as “a dead-end street in Irvine next to a carwash and a creek bed.”

But since the “$13B Angels” story, they’re most renowned for prodigious giving.

In 2015, the Inside Philanthropy website listed the retired Gelbaum as the most generous man on Wall Street, having given away more than $1 billion. Schechtel, ranked third on a 2015 list of the Wealthiest New Jerseyans at $5 billion, has also given much, hundreds of millions to find a cure for Huntington’s disease, a fatal genetic disorder.

According to Inside Philanthropy, perhaps as much as $850 million of Taylor’s giving gets funneled through the Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program, making it impossible to know how much has been distributed or where it ends up. We do know he’s been a major supporter of the Landmine Survivors Network and other human rights causes, and that he helped his son start an educational center that exposes underprivileged kids to science, technology, engineering and math.

Another charitable obsession is Africa—he adopted two young children from Ethiopia, and his passion for the continent includes support for films and documentaries to raise awareness of issues plaguing countries on the continent. The Wellspring Philanthropic Fund is thought to be the vehicle that directs the giving to east and central Africa.

Taylor is a major benefactor and board member of Tarbut V’Torah Community Day School in Irvine, a Jewish Day School founded by late businessman and Holocaust survivor Irving “Papa” Gelman on land donated by the Henry and Susan Samueli Foundation.

Taylor’s generosity seems to extend to his elite employees. TGS gets a rare perfect 5.0 rating on Glassdoor, and its website emphasizes culture: “We like … trips to playoff games, dinner theater, BBQ’s, and parties, along with impromptu on-campus breaks to play Ping-Pong, foosball, pool, or chess.” Facilities include a fitness center, nap room and rock-climbing wall.

Taylor is a reputed fitness fanatic who runs marathons. He owns a home in Shady Canyon, another in Laguna Beach.

We believe our 2017 estimate when placing Taylor on the Wealthiest List was likely conservative at $1 billion, an estimate based on formulas used based on certain levels of charitable giving, among other methods. And there’s little reason to believe the hedgies at TGS couldn’t have beaten the S&P 500 over the past 12 months (plus-14.4%).

So we’ve given Taylor a healthy 20% bump and a healthier salute, as with many others on our list, for doing so much good with the fruits of his ingenuity.

— Pete Weitzner

22 WILLIAM LYON

Chairman Emeritus

William Lyon Homes

Estimated worth: $1.1 billion

We’ve kept our estimate for Lyon and his family’s wealth flat for the third year. It’s the fourth year in a row we’ve identified the 95-year-old real estate icon as a billionaire.

His namesake company’s stock inched up over the past year to a $900 million market value this month.

He and his family—son Bill H. Lyon is the company’s board chairman and executive chairman—own all of the Newport Beach-based company’s Class B stock, which is worth a little more than $115 million, according to regulatory filings.

The stock effectively gives the family the final say on all of the homebuilder’s voting matters.

The company expanded with the acquisition of Newport Beach-based RSI Communities this year. RSI has thousands of home lots in the Inland Empire and Texas, the latter a new market for it.

Only part of the family’s wealth is directly tied to the homebuilder, which has been in business for 60 years.

The Lyons’ fortune is also largely related to its 50% ownership of Newport Beach-based Lyon Communities, an apartment owner with about 11,000 units.

The privately held apartments company, formed more than 25 years ago, is valued at about $2 billion.

Factoring in an estimated 50% debt leaves Lyon’s stake in the company at $600 million or more.

Apartment REIT market values were largely down over the past year, which is one reason we maintained our Lyon wealth estimate.

Lyon has been active in other money-making ventures over his long career here. He and fellow Wealthiest George Argyros reportedly paid about $30 million to buy AirCal out of bankruptcy in 1981, each about doubling his money with a sale to American Airlines five years later.

Lyon is also known for his classic car and plane collections. He has about 100 cars, including 10 Duesenbergs, of which only 480 were made; has a collection of old warplanes; and sponsors the Lyon Air Museum near John Wayne Airport.

His 135-acre Coto de Caza estate holds a private, 23,000-square-foot automobile museum “where Cadillacs, Packards and Duesenbergs rest their treads on a white marble floor,” noted in a 2015 profile in The Guardian that said he owns a 1941 Mercedes-Benz 770K Grosser W150 Offener Tourenwagen, a war-era car Hitler once rode in.

Known as “The General,” he served as a flyer in the Pacific, European and North African theaters during World War II. He rose to chief of the U.S. Air Force Reserve before retiring from the military in 1979 as a major general.

Together with William Steiner, he created the Orangewood home for abused and neglected children and was a charter supporter of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts. Lyon has also been one of the county’s biggest boosters of the local Republican Party and of Republican candidates.

— Mark Mueller

23 VICTOR TSAO

President

23 JANIE TSAO

Vice President

Miven Inc.

Estimated worth: $1 billion

The Tsaos continue their fact-finding mission, researching investments for their private portfolio and budding philanthropic work.

We estimate the wealth of OC’s power couple and tech duo up substantially from last year’s $850 million estimate, largely based on a better understanding of their family office, funds and foundation.

Our figure begins with the sale of home networking group Linksys Group Inc. to Cisco Systems Inc. for $500 million in 2003, when its products were in millions of homes and sold at every major retailer. We also took into account the strength and horizon of their investment portfolio since then.

Victor and Janie stayed at Linksys after the sale as senior vice presidents for Cisco Systems until they decided to retire from corporate life in 2007. They built Irvine-based Linksys into a major global player that helped usher in the era of affordable home networking.

Cisco sold the Linksys operations in 2013 to Belkin International Inc. in Playa Vista on undisclosed terms.

Miven Inc. is the new incarnation of the pure-VC Miven Venture Partners, which the couple launched before leaving their C suites in 2005. Today’s Miven manages multiple family entities that invest in a wide array of assets, including private equity, venture capital funds, hedge funds, real estate, public securities and fixed-income instruments.

The family office, which deploys assets through investment managers, the aforementioned funds, and direct investments, keeps a low profile at Newport Corporate Plaza, just far enough from Wall Street Row on Newport Center Drive.

“The bulk of my time is on that,” Victor told the Business Journal in a recent in-person interview.

Miven’s website is one paragraph—a mission statement with photos of alternating cityscapes above.

The couple, who met at Tamkang University in Taipei and later developed the first wireless router, are enshrined in the Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame.

Victor and Janie continue to be significant donors to the Tsao Family Foundation in Newport Beach to carry out their charitable ambitions.

The foundation supports religious, charitable, scientific, literary, cultural and educational causes.

They have two sons, Michael and Steven—hence Miven. Both spend time at 23 Corporate Plaza.

— Chris Casacchia

24 PETER COOPER

Owner

Cooper Co.

Estimated worth: $900 million

New Zealand native Cooper came to California in 1989 with his wife and five children. In 1988, the retail chain he led with a major brewing company merged with Lion Corp., and closed a chapter in his life.

Might as well have been Eketahuna—a rural town at the Southern tip of New Zealand’s North Island and the rough Kiwi equivalent to Timbuktu for American speakers … but the U.S. move has become a page-turner.

Cooper was born in 1951 in Kaitaia, one of the northernmost cities on the island. He’s part Maori, and a decade ago was honored for his heritage and business acumen.

The latter has spread across real estate, investments, telecommunications and other areas that drove the Business Journal to boost our estimate of his financial worth by 16%, and it may still be low. We started generally with the annual “rich list” in a New Zealand business publication, converted it to U.S. dollars, and kept our outlook conservative.

Other estimates make him a billionaire.

Still, his work has included a $1 billion downtown Auckland project including a theater, dining, fashion and retail; luxury homes at a resort and nature preserve—individual parcels in the low millions—and an internet sports broadcaster partly owned by Discovery Communications.

A diamond emerging from the rough and also worth at least $1 billion is master-planned work in Southlake, Texas—talk about Eketahuna. Cooper’s part of the growth will be thousands of homes and 3 million square feet of office, retail, restaurants, hotels and other elements.

In the 1990s, he and Gilbert Levasseur ran an investment house at 26 Corporate Plaza in Newport Beach with stakes in several public companies. Each went on his own ages ago, both now in Newport Center digs: Cooper at 520 and Levasseur at 610. Cooper also at one point ran a venture capital firm aimed at tech and medical including, a New Zealand news report said, electronics maker Calnetix Technologies LLC in Cerritos.

Cooper and his wife, Susan, have five kids—now all in their 30s—graduated from Georgetown University, to which the family has given at least $50 million.

— Paul Hughes

25 JOHN L. CURCI

Lido Peninsula Co. LLC

Estimated worth: $800 million

If your family owns acres of land surrounding the harbor in Newport Beach, how much do you think it appreciated in value in the past year?

“A lot” would be a safe answer. In the case of Curci, we think 9% is a conservative estimate that could very well be low-balled. Still, that is a $65 million increase in wealth to $800 million.

Curci is a private person who avoids the limelight. In 2015, his family foundation donated $2.2 million, half of which went to the Orange County Community Foundation. Yet, the organizations receiving the funds issued no press releases praising him.

He isn’t an active political donor, giving less than $1,000 to funds for President Donald Trump and Rep. Paul Ryan. He hasn’t donated anything to politicians since 2016.

Curci is a low-profile patriarch who heads a family whose wealth might very well be underestimated. The family has worked over several generations to make significant marks on the office, residential and resort landscapes of OC and Palm Springs, with interests in industrial and agricultural property throughout Southern California and up the coast, according to sources with knowledge of the holdings.

A big piece of their wealth is said to stem from about 23 acres owned by Lido Peninsula Co., which includes manufactured houses that have been developed and sold with ground leases. Notable tenants include the Lido Yacht Anchorage & Drystack and well-known Sabatino’s Sausage Co.

Early and long-standing investments in Ed Roski’s Majestic Realty Co. are also said to have bolstered the family’s holdings through the years.

The Curci fortune started with John’s late father, also named John, who began buying land in California during the Great Depression. “Buying land in California is smart if you’ve got staying power,” the elder Curci was fond of saying, according to sources familiar with the family.

He went on to play a key role in development of the La Quinta, Indian Wells and Thunderbird country clubs, according to various news reports. The annual Bob Hope Classic at La Quinta has a field named after the elder Curci, who’s listed with Desi Arnaz among founders of Indian Wells in various reports.

His son and the rest of the clan carry little debt and have maintained an “impeccable” reputation in the business world, according to familiar sources.

The next generation continues to bring variety to the family business, with son John M. Curci running DBaC Inc., a tenant-improvement contractor that reported revenue rose 1% last year to $49.3 million. The featured project on its website is a new headquarters for Bixby Land Co., a Newport Beach-based real estate investment trust.

The family tradition looks like it will continue. Nick Curci, son of John M., worked summers at DBaC while in college and then after graduating in 2015 from UC Santa Barbara, began full-time. Last year, Nick was a superintendent overseeing the remodeling of a Balboa Peninsula institution, William Harold Jewelers.

The John Curci Family Foundation reported $43 million in assets as of 2016, according to the Charity Navigator website. His foundation has also donated to Catholic churches and schools and Chapman University. He’s on the board of directors of the George Hoag Family Foundation, which reported $65.6 million in assets in 2016.

—Peter J. Brennan

25 WILLIAM WANG

Co-Founder, Chief Executive

Vizio Inc.

Estimated worth: $800 million

We kept William Wang’s net worth flat as one of Orange County’s best-known brands failed to pick up market share in the past year.

Perennial No. 1 seller, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., the world’s largest consumer electronics maker, had a 28% market share of the flat-panel market, down from 30% in 2016, according to figures compiled by London-based IHS Markit. Vizio still ranked second with a 14% share, down from 19%.

Wang tells us Vizio’s #2-share today is a few points higher.

It remains the top seller of sound bar speakers, “Number in the nation, 30% market share, and No. 1 for the last five years,” Wang told the Business Journal. “Better margins than you think, audio is more like a wine, video is more like a beer.”

Vizio, co-founded by Wang in 2002, is OC’s second-largest minority-owned business, with annual revenue over $2.5 billion. Fountain Valley-based Kingston Technology Co. is the perennial leader with estimated revenue of $6.7 billion.

Vizio is still embroiled in a lawsuit with LeEco after its $2 billion proposed sale to the Chinese conglomerate collapsed last year. It seeks $110 million in damages, legal fees and other relief, contending LeEco’s management team, led by Chief Executive and founder Yueting “YT” Jia, and finance arm Global Holdings breached the sales contract, failed to negotiate in good faith, and refused to pay the remaining $50 million in buyer-termination fees, according to documents filed in Superior Court in Santa Ana.

The company has maintained a quiet local profile since the failed transaction and the LeEco fallout also hampered Vizio’s efforts to expand into China.

And Wang said he’s solely focused now on “growing the business,” including the data and advertising segments, which are linked to flat-panel sales—Vizio added the Google Play Movies & TV app to higher-end models last year, allowing users to access tens of thousands of new-release movies and next-day TV shows. And it rolled out SmartCast OS with voice support in April, providing access to thousands of apps from Google Chromecast, an add-on device that plugs into the TV and costs about $70

Wang’s wealth ballooned in 2016 from an estimated $350 million in 2015 to $1.1 billion after the sale was announced. He had a 54.7% stake in the company, according to regulatory filings. Our reporting shows it’s up a few points higher since.

His wealth took a hit last year after the merger fizzled and another buyer failed to materialize.

Vizio’s largest minority owners are Taiwan-based AmTRAN Technology Co., which controlled 20.4% of common stock per SEC filings in late 2015, and Q-Run Holdings Ltd., an affiliate of Taipei, Taiwan-based Hon Hai Precision Co. that held about an 8.3% stake. Hon Hai, better known as FoxConn, is the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer.

La Jolla-based V-TW Holdings LLC had a 7.7% stake, according to regulatory filings. We’ve confirmed all still hold similar equity stakes in privately-held Vizio, though one or two may have trimmed their holdings by several percentage points.

Wang graduated from University of Southern California with a degree in electrical engineering. He sits on the board of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts.

— Chris Casacchia

25 PALMER LUCKEY

Co-Founder

Oculus VR

Founder

Anudril Industries

Estimated worth: $800 million

“Luckey Strikes.” “Luckey Again.” “Luckey Lands.” There may be no consensus on the headline, there’s agreement on this much: When Oculus whiz Palmer Luckey chose to return to Orange County to base and grow his new business, Anduril Industries Inc., it was among the most positive, if not surprising, business developments of 2018. Taken with Chipotle CEO Brian Niccol’s decision to get out Denver and Escape New York for Newport Beach the moves were confirmation the Community of Business had the technology infrastructure, the restaurant infrastructure to support and draw such companies and leaders.

In a recent Luckey tweet promoting his defense-contracting company: “Proud to be working with the best in tech on national security issues that matter.”

And Chipotle’s Niccol in his first earnings call since announcing (justifying?) the move to Newport Beach: “There’s a lot of talent…”

Palmer Luckey returned to Irvine, where he grew his first startup, Oculus VR, designer of The Rift, a VR headset for gaming, into a $2 billion company—not bad for being seeded just two years prior with a $2.5 million Kickstarter campaign. Subsequently Luckey drew validating investments form Silicon Valley bigs Mark Andreesen of Andreessen Horowitz, and a man who’d become one of Luckey’s mentors, benefactors and seemingly soulmate, PayPal co-founder, Peter Thiel. The two men share a penchant and gift for developing and growing cutting-edge tech-startups, not to mention a common political ideology and love of science fiction. (Anduril is the name of Aragorn’s sword, Aragorn one of the heroes of “Lord of the Rings.”)

Luckey and his partners sold Oculus to Facebook Inc. for $2 billion—$400 million in cash and 23.1 million shares of Facebook common stock, valued at $1.6 billion based on the average closing price of the 20 trading days preceding March 21, 2014 of $69.35 per share). The agreement also provided for an additional $300 million earn-out in cash and stock based on the achievement of certain milestones.

His move up to Menlo Park was hailed as a “breath of fresh air,” by TechCrunch and other SV intimates—in this vast, tech region dominated by bred-in-the purple types— here was this Long Beach home-schooled, college dropout –a gamer, tinkerer and independent thinker bent on pushing the visual-envelope to where it hadn’t ventured. Sci-fi, fantasy stuff. And cool.

Luckey openly back President Donald Trump and funded a pro-Trump group, Nimble America – apparently an untenable position in Silicon Valley. Upon departure Luckey tweeted:

“I am deeply sorry that my actions are negatively impacting the perception of Oculus and its partners … my actions were my own and do not represent Oculus. I’m sorry for the impact my actions are having on the community.”

Analysts at the time said those politics don’t work with the carefully curated PR out of House Zuckerberg—well this was March 2017. Crisis public relations has grown to be a much larger line item in Menlo Park. (Russian election posts, funneling data of 50 million user to Cambridge Analytica—a political outfit working for The Trump campaign).

Luckey left. But The FB rift didn’t bother the Rift creator long and it took him back to the roots of his business success, Irvine’s tech hub and being in charge. He got busy.

May 2017: Property records show that Zeal Palace LP paid $34.5 million for Huntington Harbor Bay Club, a 13-acre waterfront site on Warner Avenue about half a mile from the ocean. It came with an entertainment center the owner shed for $13 million. Zeal Palace? That’s a Super Nintendo video game reference, of course, and signals the owner.

 Thiel-backed Founder’s Fund, led here by partner Brian Singerman led a $41 million Series A round for the company this past May, according to Wired. Previously Founder’s invested $17.5 million in the company. No indication what % of the company Luckey sold in either transaction.

 Signed largest OC lease of the year in June for a 155,000sf building a few blocks from John Wayne Airport. The new creative office space should comfortably hold several hundred employees, Anduril now reports less than 50 workers, but can go up to 620 at the LBA Realty owned property.

And Anduril’s hiring: 10 jobs, nine engineers: Embedded Operations Engineer; Electrical Engineer, Embedded Systems Engineer, Mechanical Engineer, Computer Vision Engineer, Sensor Fusion Engineer, Software Engineer—Backend Systems, Software Engineer-Frontend Systems, Software Engineer—Scientific Computing

Yes, testament an existing and growing ecosystem Luckey and his backers believe can produce the human capital needed by a company with this mission: “a team of inventors, builders, makers, and problem solvers…using technology to solve the complex security challenges facing America and its allies.”

This week UC-Irvine broke ground on a $120 million project, the largest inter-disciplinary engineering center in the West; Chapman’s Fowler School of Science and Technology, Keck School of Engineering are coming on line starting this fall.

Luckey timing, for a man running a defense startup and tweet-hiring: “If you want to build cool products that make America safer, please ping me.”

When he left FB in March, Forbes pegged Luckey’s net worth at $730 million. He’s surely added value already with Anduril, with his power investors and investment, and his own auspicious start in business. Throw in at least one OC residence, we hear Lido, the marina and perhaps holding a few of those Facebook-buyout shares with a $69 basis –up 260% since even after Thursday’s bloodletting –and we conservatively estimate Mr. Luckey’s worth at $800 million.

By the way, we chose “Luckey Strikes” to promote the “Luckey Landing” story that Real Estate Editor Mark Mueller broke —Palmer Luckey seemed to liked it, he retweeted.

— Pete Weitzner

28 HOWARD F. AHMANSON JR.

Heir, Philanthropist

Fieldstead & Co.

Estimated worth: $750 million

Longtime backer with wife, Roberta, of causes that cultivate communities: art galleries and symphonies, colleges and universities, monks and rescue missions.

Specific efforts include support for the work of visual artist Makoto Fujimura, who directs the Brehm Center at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena; a sacred art renovation for a chapel at Biola University in La Mirada; and planning an art gallery, studio space, and artist-in-residence program in Hollywood.

The Ahmansons locally have given to OC Rescue Mission, Pacific Symphony, St. Michael’s Abbey, and Chapman University, which has received about $520,000 for public policy conferences and surveying OC’s political and social scene, with the most recent gift being $330,000 in December.

Ahmanson’s work has also recently returned him to his heritage: people in their homes, including backing a daylong conference at the University of Southern California on Aug. 1 to discuss home ownership, an issue at the core of his namesake father’s life’s work.

Howard Ahmanson Sr. founded Home Savings & Loan and bequeathed his son a portion of his estate upon his death in 1968 when Howard Jr. was 18.

Home Savings was later sold to Washington Mutual for $10 billion.

He has called his holdings “cloud wealth,” meaning inaccessible.

We’ve taken our wealth estimate up 3% based on careful trust-fund investing offset by giving.

Irvine-based family office Fieldstead & Co. manages Ahmanson affairs. Howard and Roberta direct efforts and decide where to give.

They’ve been married more than 30 years and have one adult son.

— Paul Hughes

29 SUE GROSS

Estimated worth: $700 million

When Bill Gross was in the midst of a controversy in 2014, the Bond King told a business magazine, “Whenever I read the newspaper, I say to myself, ‘At least my wife loves me.’”

That sentiment is long gone as Sue last October officially split from her husband of 31 years, a legend in the bond world who had co-founded Newport Beach’s PIMCO, one of the world’s largest money managers.

When Sue filed for a divorce in late 2016, it wasn’t low key as she hired Laura Wasser, a Hollywood high-flying divorce attorney who has represented celebrities like Angelina Jolie and Maria Shriver.

The ensuing year was full of gossipy details from court filings about their flamboyant lifestyles and splashed across the nation’s largest newspapers.

The couple argued about the family cats, with Sue complaining that they were “dying” in a stifling part of the house, according to Bill’s testimony.

Bill thought he had a $25 million Picasso hanging in his bedroom. However, Sue revealed that it was a copy she herself had painted and substituted without his knowledge. The genuine painting sold for $37 million at a Sotheby’s auction in May, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Under California law, divorcing couples typically split assets down the middle. From what we hear, she settled for $700 million, or a quarter of Bill’s estimated worth a year ago of $2.7 billion. When the Business Journal called Wasser’s office for a comment, a voice mail said the firm doesn’t respond to any media requests.

Even though the divorce is final, both sides are still arguing in court.

Sue, “while driving her V12-powered Mercedes-Benz,” attempted to run over an employee of a private security firm hired by Bill, according to a court complaint filed in June. Sue is accusing the security firm of harassment.

Although she did win his beloved 13,819 square foot Laguna Beach home, Bill allegedly “used foul-smelling sprays to leave the place a stinking mess,” Reuters reported last month, citing court documents.

It appears Sue may try for some physical separation; in February, she bought a $20 million, 6,700-square-foot home in Beverly Hills.

“I had been looking in the Beverly Hills area for over a year, and this one was a good fit,” she told the Wall Street Journal.

Bill still apparently has a Beverly Hills connection because in 2011, the couple had bought a home there from actress Jennifer Anniston.

The Grosses, big philanthropists in Orange County and beyond, have planned to ultimately give away all of their wealth.

Gross previously said Sue was in charge of giving for their charity, which has donated more than $800 million over the years, including $40 million to create a school of nursing at the University of California-Irvine, $38 million to Doctors Without Borders, and $23.5 million to his alma mater, Duke University.

That foundation listed assets of $355 million as of 2015.

Sue has set up her own foundation, which has an Irvine address. As of a filing a year ago, its reported assets were zero, something that is bound to change.

—Peter J. Brennan

30 FARIBORZ MASEEH

Founder, Managing Principal

Picoco LLC

Estimated worth: $675 million

Maseeh, an American success story from Iran, has lowered his profile in the past year.

His company’s webite hasn’t changed much from last year. Picoco has no filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. His charity, Massiah Foundation, hasn’t issued a press release since 2015.

Maseeh, who has given almost $90,000 over the years to Republican candidates, including local U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, hasn’t donated any money so far this year. A message left at his Newport Beach office wasn’t returned.

Still, he’s had spectacular successes in business and charity.

He arrived in the U.S. at 18 and graduated with an engineering degree from Portland State University. He also earned a doctorate from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Maseeh founded IntelliSense Corp. in 1991 to make microelectromechanical systems, or MEMS. Corning Inc. bought 33% of the company in 1999 and the following year purchased the remainder for almost $500 million, saying in its annual report that year that IntelliSense’s technology would “play a key role” in development of an optical networking layer.

In 2001, Maseeh founded Picoco in Newport Beach, an investment management firm that doesn’t publicly announce deals. Internal hedge fund Orbitron invests based on annual macroinvestment themes using a lot of options and a quantitative investing style. Picoco also invests in long-only managers, hedge funds and funds of funds. It’s diversified its real estate portfolio, investing at least $1 million per property in California, Massachusetts and Oregon, with a 10-year time horizon.

While he probably beat the 14% return of the S&P 500 in the trailing 12 months, his real estate portfolio likely didn’t grow as fast. Similar to last year, we use a conservative 9% boost in assets.

Maseeh’s below-the-radar personal style is punctuated by the occasional soiree at his oceanfront Newport Beach mansion, Portabello, which he purchased in 2010 for more than $30 million.

He approaches philanthropy like an investment. His foundation is “Venture Philanthropy: We do not give gifts. We make philanthropic investments.”

He’s the parent of an autistic child and founder of the Kids Institute for Development and Advancement, Orange County’s largest center for autism services with a 50,000-square-foot facility in Irvine. Other philanthropic activity includes a prayer and meditation room at Children’s Hospital of Orange County bearing the family name, as does as a chapel at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach.

He also bought The Port movie theater in Corona del Mar and has spent $1 million on renovations to host film festivals and beauty pageants.

He started the Dr. Samuel M. Jordan Center for Persian Studies and Culture at the University of California-Irvine—named for an American Presbyterian missionary known in some circles as the “father of modern education in Iran.” Maseeh endowed a chair there for Persian Studies and Culture in the School of Humanities and professorships in Persian performing arts and history.

Among other recipients of his philanthropy are the Samueli School of Engineering at UCI and St. Margaret’s Episcopal School in San Juan Capistrano.

His foundation has given to Portland State University, where the school of engineering and the math and statistics department are named after him. He donated $24 million to MIT, which put his name on the undergraduate residence he lived in while earning the doctorate.

“I am here because others built the physical and intellectual infrastructure that gave me and others a chance to succeed,” he said at the 2011 dedication ceremony. “There is a saying that if you see a frog on a fence post, you know someone put it there. I am that frog.”

— Peter J. Brennan

31 JOSEPH ‘JOE’ KIANI

Chairman, Co-Founder; Chief Executive

Masimo Corp.

Estimated worth: $650 million

Masimo had a good 2017, and so did its founder. In Kiani’s third year on the Business Journal’s Wealthiest List, he improved his personal balance sheet with a new compensation plan approved last year by his Board of Directors that shifted much of his compensation to performance-based metrics. The new bonus and equity plans—comprised of 7.5% base salary, 7.5% annual bonus, 20.2% stock options and 64.8% performance-based restrictive share units— were better than average for Joe, thanks to Irvine-based Masimo Corp.’s strong sales growth. The noninvasive patient-monitoring device maker reported revenue, including royalties, of approximately $798 million last year, compared to $694.6 million in 2016 and $630 million in 2015.

Kiani made nearly $12 million in 2017 in stock and options awards bring his 2017 compensation to about $14.2 million per his company’s April proxy filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The company’s stock (Nasdaq: MASI) has increased four-fold since the start of 2015.

Kiani founded Masimo in 1989 in a garage and has been chief executive and chairman since. He raised $80 million in venture capital before taking it public in 2007, raising $233 million. Shares of the minimally invasive patient monitoring device maker currently trade around $100, with a market value of $5.2 billion.

And Masimo stock is where Kiani’s amassed his fortune. His contract, from 2007 to 2015, included benefits such as guaranteed 300,000 stock options annually, $111.9 million in restricted stock that vested if his employment with the company was terminated, and golden parachute payments if the company was bought. He relinquished those benefits, and some others, in exchange for $112 million in stock and $35 million in cash that would pay out if the company terminates his employment before 2018.

Going forward Kiani is guaranteed 100,000 stock options annually and was awarded 150,000 performance-based restricted shares as of June last year, according to SEC filings. He held about 5.9 million shares of the company per April’s proxy filing, about 11.5% ownership of the company. Most of his shares are held in various trusts.

Masimo received Food and Drug Administration clearance this year for home use of the Rad-9 Pulse Co-Oximeter device. Kiani told the Business Journal the approval of the home monitoring and telehealth equipment moved the company into a new business segment. It intends to develop a suite of products that allow patients to receive care at home, a growing trend.

He’s also chairman and chief executive of Irvine-based Cercacor Laboratories Inc., which develops noninvasive blood oxygen level tracking devices or wearables for sports training. It licenses its technology from Masimo.

Kiani’s philanthropic passions are children, economic empowerment, health and poverty alleviation.

He’s chairman of a nonprofit foundation bearing the Masimo name, founder and chairman of the nonprofit Patient Safety Movement Foundation, which was founded in 2013 and aims to bring together hospitals, medical device and medical technology companies to eliminate preventable hospital deaths. Past speakers at the organization’s annual summit in Laguna Beach include former President Bill Clinton.

He serves on the board of St. Louis-based Stereotaxis Inc. (OTCQ: STXS), a manufacturer of robotic cardiology instrument navigation system, and enterprise-grade artificial reality platform developer Atheer in Mountain View. He is also a board member of Children’s Hospital of Orange County, a trustee of Chapman University and received Chapman’s Argyros Medal in 2013 for his entrepreneurship and patient safety work.

Kiani was born in Iran and moved to the U.S. when he was 9. He holds bachelors and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from San Diego University, where he serves on the dean’s advisory board of the engineering school.

We are boosting his net worth by $75 million to $650 million, based on the continued growth of his businesses and appreciation in Masimo stock, up 18% since this time last year.

— Sherry Hsieh and Pete Weitzner

32 FLETCHER ‘TED’ JONES JR.

Chief Executive

Fletcher Jones

Management Group Inc.

Estimated worth: $625 million

Fletcher Jones Management Group, among the top 20 dealers in the country, posted $2.37 billion in revenue last year, a 1.7% increase year-over-year. Flagship property Fletcher Jones Motorcars in Newport Beach, brought in $649 million in the 12-month period that ended June 30, 2017, down 1.1% year-over-year. New-car sales were flat at 6,720 as used-car sales fell 12% to 2,233. The biggest dealership in Orange County employed 288 sales and service personnel, down from 296 a year ago.

In April, the Las Vegas-based group opened an Audi shop in Costa Mesa, bringing the total to 19 in California, Nevada, Illinois and Hawaii.

Jones’ father, Fletcher Sr., started the company in 1946 at Seventh Street and Vermont Avenue in Los Angeles, selling his first vehicle for $70. His son, better known as Ted, worked “in a wide array of entry-level positions, ranging from sweeping the facility’s floors and working in the parts department before advancing into sales and management positions,” according to the group. Ted, “with his father’s guidance” opened his first dealership in Whittier—a Mazda shop—and in 1991 bought a bankrupt luxury auto dealership in Newport Beach.

Jones lives at Pelican Point in Newport Coast and keeps an office in Newport Beach. We’re estimating his wealth is flat, in line with U.S. auto sales.

— Mediha DiMartino

33 GARY JABARA

Founder, Chief Executive

Mobilitie LLC

Estimated worth: $610 million

The founder of the largest telecommunications firm based in Orange County isn’t lacking in business ideas.

Jabara started the Newport Beach-based telecom infrastructure firm in 2005 as an operator and owner of cellphone towers. Mobilitie scored its first big payday in 2012 with the $1.1 billion sale of 2,300 cell-phone towers, a “portion” of Mobilitie’s assets.

Next, it started a line of business providing upgraded wireless service to sports arenas, concert venues, casinos and other large venues.

It’s now one of the country’s largest providers of distributed antenna systems, large-scale wireless networks for spots where tens of thousands of people are in close proximity and expect strong cellphone connections.

It recently turned its attention toward helping the country’s largest wireless companies deploy small cell base stations, which companies use to prep their networks for upcoming 5G service.

Mobilitie also operates the largest Wi-Fi network in the world, through its work in Las Vegas with MGM Resorts and Casinos, which has nearly 40,000 hotel rooms in the city.

It’s a multibillion-dollar operation that’s expanded Mobilitie’s operations across the country, and no doubt boosted Jabara’s bottom line.

We’ve accordingly upped our estimate of his wealth.

In addition to his telecom work, this year’s ranking also factors in gains for Jabara’s extensive real estate holdings and related investments, much of them local. He’s spent more than $200 million on residential and commercial real estate since 2012, including several Newport Beach buildings.

Jabara is also the main financial backer of Villa Real Estate, a luxury home brokerage that’s among the largest in SoCal coastal markets. Gross sales at Villa are well over $1 billion annually.

This year, he announced at least two new business lines are in the early stages.

Chihuahua Cerveza, an OC-based beer maker that produces four types of Mexican-style lager, plans to make about 1 million cases per year by the end of next year.

“It will be the fastest-growing beer company in the country,” Jabara said in May.

Social Worm LLC is a publishing firm with a heavy online component. It employs about a dozen people and has invested a few million dollars, primarily on development of an online app whose initial focus is on sports-related books emphasizing interaction between authors and readers.

He’s partnered with Mia Hamm of soccer fame, 2018 Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Trevor Hoffman, and Allan Russell, the striker coach for the England national football team.

Both business lines are “scalable,” he said. “And everything we’ve done has been started here. We haven’t acquired anything.”

Jabara’s philanthropic efforts include support of several schools and charities, including NYU, USC, Orange Coast College, Sage Hill School in Newport Beach and the Newport-Mesa Unified School District.

— Mark Mueller

34 ANTHONY MAGLICA

Founder, President

Mag Instrument Inc.

Estimated worth: $605 million

Maglica may be 86 years old, but he’s still active in his company and in society.

In fact, he recently received his 200th patent.

In May, the company’s Maglite ML 150LR LED Rechargeable Flashlight System was one of eight finalists to win “Best New Product” at the National Hardware Manufacturing Awards.

“It’s an honor,” he said in a statement. “We maintain a commitment to high quality, American manufactured products while providing the public with high-performance, reliable and durable products.”

The Anaheim Hills resident was born in New York, but moved with his mother to her native Croatia as the Great Depression took hold. He returned to the States in 1950, first working at a sewing factory in New York and later as a machinist in Denver and Long Beach.

Maglica founded his company in 1955 when he “opened a one-man machine shop in a rented garage” that made parts for pumps and later the aerospace industry.

Maglica introduced the Mag-Lite flashlight in 1979, a product that’s become a favorite among first responders, and his firm now employs hundreds at its factory in Ontario.

“Nowhere but in America could somebody who started with as little as I had come as far as I have,” he wrote in an article last year in the Wall Street Journal. “The best way I know to show my gratitude is by keeping alive American manufacturing jobs, ones that involve the same tradecrafts on which my own success was based.”

If we use a conservative 10% rise from a year ago for Maglica’s flashlight business, along with an extensive portfolio of real estate abroad, his estimated worth is about $605 million.

The company entered a sponsorship agreement with the American Veterans Center and the National Memorial Day Parade in Washington D.C. in May. Maglica sponsored the appearance of Grand Marshals Anthony Sadler, Alek Skarlatos, an Army National Guard veteran, and Spencer Stone, a U.S. Air Force veteran, the heroes who stopped the terrorist attack on the French train in 2015 and who recently portrayed themselves in Clint Eastwood’s “The 15:17 to Paris.”

“I have deep feelings and great respect for all veterans and I am so pleased that we have been able to partner with the American Veterans Center in their efforts to make sure the greatest generation of World War II veterans are honored and that their sacrifice is not forgotten,” Maglica said in a May statement.

— Peter J. Brennan

35 JAMES DOWNEY

Co-Founder

EnCore Group

Estimated worth: $600 million

Downey’s net worth got a lift from a key aviation manufacturing certification and a divestiture.

LIFT, the seat production business of his Huntington Beach-based EnCore, attained one of the hardest certifications to get in the airline business. The unit is making economy seats for the B737 aircraft, delivering its first models to LOT Polish Airlines, which flies about five million passengers a year from its Warsaw hub, as well as low-cost Indian airliner SpiceJet and U.K.-based Monarch.

EnCore’s strategic relationship with aerospace giant Boeing, its largest customer, provided a solid foundation for LIFT to get off the ground.

In December, Downey unloaded EnCore Composite Structures, which operates a 120,000-square-foot factory in Brea, to Lake Forest-based AC&A Enterprises Holdings LLC on undisclosed terms.

“It helped focus and consolidate our activities, as well as fund our accelerated growth for the other EnCore companies,” a spokesman told the Business Journal.

Sales at that unit, which handles complex assemblies for Airbus’ A350 aircraft and the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey, had doubled since Downey acquired Irvine-based Composites Unlimited Inc. in 2011 for an undisclosed amount and London-based BAE Systems PLC’s composite structures line of business in Brea for $32.5 million.

EnCore is nearing $100 million in sales this year and on pace to exceed $120 million next year, bolstered by a strong five-year backlog. It’s approaching 600 employees, nearly 400 of them in OC.

Due to the robust product pipeline, the composite sale, and new certification, the Business Journal increased Downey’s wealth by 4.4%.

EnCore, launched in 2011 with Chief Executive Tom McFarland, is Downey’s third aerospace-sector venture.

C&D Aerospace, which he grew to about $400 million in annual revenue and a workforce of about 4,000 in 15 locations around the world, was sold in 2005 for $600 million to Zodiac SA in France, accounting for most of Downey’s wealth.

EnCore Interiors in Huntington Beach supplies galleys, closets, partitions, dividers and other stand-up compartments for commercial airplanes of established customers, including Southwest, Delta and American.

Downey also oversees Aliso Viejo-based family investment firm Wave Equity Partners LLC, which manages and supports family investments and philanthropy. He keeps a low profile, though he’s given millions through his foundations since the C&D sale.

— Chris Casacchia

35 RICHARD ‘DICK’ PICKUP

Investor

Estimated worth: $600 million

Pickup debuts on the list with wealth from several decades of equities and real estate investing, including stakes in OC companies and resort, club, and golf properties.

He told the Business Journal as part of being named our 2015 Person of the Year in Hospitality that he’d in the past taken “significant positions in stable, deep-value” companies, such as the parents of the Carl’s Jr. and Denny’s restaurant chains.

He was a director and shareholder in Epicor Software Corp., formerly based in Irvine. Epicor was taken private in an $800 million deal in 2011 and is now based in Austin, Texas.

He holds 27% of mortgage lender Impac Mortgage Holdings Inc., also in Irvine; son Todd has 14% of Impac, which traded recently at a $190 million market cap.

With Todd and son-in-law Kevin Martin—the latter two are principals of investment group Eagle Four Partners—he paid an estimated $170 million for International Bay Clubs LLC, which owned Balboa Bay Club, Balboa Bay Resort and Newport Beach Country Club. Renovations added at least another $65 million, and it shows: The country club’s clubhouse is a crown jewel overlooking Coast Highway; the private club and public resort also got significant revamps. The country club also hosts the PGA Champions Tour Toshiba Classic each fall.

Pickup, 84, was born in Whittier and moved here in the 1960s. He said he played at the country club when it was the social center of the area “and there was no Fashion Island.”

He said he bought the properties for his family’s future—“This is work that can stand”—and called the acquisition “opportunistic” after a foreign buyer’s bid fell short. It came to his attention in part by having invested in hotels for two decades with Timothy Busch, who’s also on this list.

Pickup is a local philanthropist, backing scholarships for kids, among other causes.

In October, the family foundation gave $15 million to Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach for its neurosciences institute.

— Paul Hughes

35 DAVID WILSON

Owner, Chief Executive

Wilson Automotive

Estimated worth: $600 million

Wilson’s 17 dealerships combined last year for $2.24 billion in revenue, down 5.7% year-over-year, according to data from WardsAuto 2018 Megadealer 100 list.

Toyota of Orange is Wilson Automotive’s top performer at about $337.7 million in revenue for the 12 months that ended June 30, 2017, followed by Newport Lexus at $202 million, and David Wilson’s Villa Ford in Orange at $111 million. The numbers include proceeds from new and used vehicle sales, service and parts, and finance and insurance revenue.

Last year, Wilson sold Volkswagen of San Bernardino to Car Pros Kia in Huntington Beach and Desert Lexus in Cathedral City to Mount Pleasant, Iowa-based Shottenkirk Automotive Group, after his partners at both dealerships wanted to cash out and retire. The divestments, along with cooling U.S. auto sales, have prompted us to drop Wilson’s estimated personal net worth by 7.7%.

Wilson worked nights and weekends while attending the University of Northern Iowa, changing oil and tires at a local car dealership. He became a car salesman—and eventually a dealer—after leaving an oil filter off a telephone company’s van, ruining its engine. His laborer’s wages couldn’t cover the damages, so he switched to sales, which turned out to be a better fit.

Wilson was VP and general manager of a Lincoln Mercury dealership in Phoenix, before buying out the owner of Toyota of Orange in 1985. He served on the California New Motor Vehicle Board as a gubernatorial appointee for 14 years, including two years as vice president and two as president.

Wilson extends his civic efforts to philanthropy, supporting Chapman University, Orangewood Children’s Foundation, SchoolPower in Laguna Beach, and Boys & Girls Clubs.

—Mediha DiMartino

38 TIMOTHY BUSCH

Founder, Chief Executive, President

Pacific Hospitality Group

Estimated worth: $500 million

In September, a PHG-led group sold the 360-room Bacara Resort & Spa near Santa Barbara for $375 million, which it bought with Eagle Four Partners in Irvine and Bill Foley in 2013 for $185 million, plus $27 million in upgrades.

In January, another partnership sold Wyndham Anaheim Garden Grove hotel to Irvine-based Khanna Enterprises Ltd. for $61 million. PHG had developed the 376-room property in 1999.

This month it opened the 145-room Vista Collina Resort in Napa near its flagship 322-room Meritage Resort and Spa and the Trinitas Cellars winery Busch owns.

We’ve taken his wealth up from last year’s $350 million based on a booming hotel market and PHG’s portfolio of hotels it holds stakes in, a lifetime of buying and selling hospitality properties, investing and other holdings, and a significant level of serious giving.

Busch and his wife Steph, through their family foundation, gave $15 million to name the business school at Catholic University of America; the family is believed to have given a similar amount to the Christ Cathedral renovation of the former Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, where Tim Busch for a time co-led the capital campaign committee.

They’ve backed two schools in OC—JSerra Catholic High School in San Juan Capistrano and St. Anne School in Laguna Niguel—and Busch funds culture-focused conferences, supports Catholic business leadership group Legatus and maintains a chapel in the Dupont Drive building—which he owns—that houses PHG and his Busch Law Firm.

He co-owns with his brothers an upscale grocery store chain in Michigan, cofounded by his father, Joe, who passed away in 2015 at age 89. The chain—think Bristol Farms—added its 17th location last year and employs about 1,500.

PHG is primarily a hotel manager and managing partner of hotels the Busch-led groups buy, or via the $125 million investment fund he launched in 2016. Busch has bought and sold properties for decades, with partners, trading up-and-up to today’s stable of luxe resorts and hip, high-end lifestyle hotels.

PHG has a part in Paséa Hotel & Spa in Huntington Beach, more resorts in North San Diego and Hawaii, and AC Hotels in Irvine, Tempe, Dallas, and New Orleans—acquired at $50 million to $60 million apiece—with a couple OC business-class sites.

The portfolio PHG oversees as managing partner includes 2,400 rooms, 170,000 square feet of meeting space, several spas and other amenities, and is valued at about $2 billion.

—Paul Hughes

38 GAVIN HERBERT SR.

Former Chief Executive, Allergan

Estimated worth: $500 million

Plenty of former (and maybe current) presidents would love to have the wealth of Gavin Herbert Sr., as well as his home.

We’ve given a $500 million estimate to the bottom line of Herbert and his family, which was instrumental in the development of Orange County’s business community, but now might be more known for its real estate holdings.

Herbert was a transformative chief executive of Allergan Inc., which was founded by his father in 1948 and sold in 2014 for about $72 billion.

The company was started over a drugstore in Los Angeles; Herbert moved the company to Irvine in the mid-1960s—back when what’s now John Wayne Airport was a windsock operation surrounded by farmland.

Along with Allergan, where he was chairman emeritus, Herbert helped with the development of University of California-Irvine, which opened around the time the drug maker moved in to its current Irvine location. The school now is home to a world-class eye institute that bears Herbert’s name.

The Herbert family has given or pledged at least $24 million to eyecare research at UCI, beginning with a $10 million gift from Gavin and his mother Josephine Herbert Gleis in 2007 to help start the institute.

Another notable OC property with Herbert’s name on it, at least for now: San Clemente’s La Casa Pacifica, Richard Nixon’s former Western White House. Herbert bought the sprawling seaside property around 1980.

It’s been on and off the market a few times the past few years. It’s currently listed for $63.5 million.

Also under the family’s ownership and management: Roger’s Gardens, the 6-acre Corona del Mar nursery that’s the Disneyland of all things home and garden.

Herbert bought the nursery in the late 1960s; it’s now home to one of the area’s better-regarded restaurants, the Farmhouse at Rogers Gardens.

The business, which also includes landscaping services and a gallery, does about $25 million in sales and serves nearly 250,000 customers annually, co-owner Gavin Herbert Jr. said a few years ago.

— Mark Mueller

38 MANOUCH MOSHAYEDI

Mark Moshayedi

Mike Moshayedi

Estimated worth: $500 million

The Moshayedi family made their first fortune through technology. Now real estate’s the game. The family has accumulated one of the largest portfolios of commercial property in their hometown of Newport Beach.

Our estimated valuation is of the combined holdings of Mark, Mike and Manouch Moshayedi, who in the 1990s co-founded Santa Ana-based computer storage device-maker STEC Inc.

The brothers held a variety of executive roles over the years at the company, which quickly grew into one of the largest technology firms based in Orange County. Mark, who was chief executive for a time, also held more than 50 patents to his name.

STEC was sold in 2013 to a unit of Western Digital Corp., then based in Irvine, for $340 million.

The family put much of its earnings from STEC into commercial real estate in recent years; it’s invested in most of its area deals through associated investment groups.

Mark’s investments have been run under MSM Global Ventures, while Manouch’s are largely consolidated under his MX3 Ventures business.

The family made real estate headlines through ownership of Shoppes at Chino Hills, a 377,966-square-foot mall in southwest San Bernardino County, paying a reported $94.5 million for it in 2010 and selling it four years later for $147 million.

Closer to home, it’s assembled large chunks of commercial property along the Mariner’s Mile stretch of Pacific Coast Highway in Newport Beach over the past decade, including several blocks’ worth of waterfront property that it’s spent more than $130 million on since 2009, according to Business Journal records. A redevelopment plan for a portion of the properties is in the early planning stage.

More buying is in the works. Mark recently announced the creation of Space Investment Partners, an Irvine-based commercial real estate operating company that wants to buy several hundred million dollars’ worth of property over the next few years. He plans to bring additional investors into the business, in addition to using his own money.

“We could do a billion dollars [in deals] right now if we found the right ones,” he told the Business Journal last month.

In addition to real estate, Mark has one off the area’s largest collections of rare cars. Manouch reportedly has a large collection of racing yachts.

— Mark Mueller

38 DAVID PYOTT

Former Chief Executive, Allergan

Estimated worth: $500 million

A little Botox goes a long way, especially when figuring out the wealth of a long-time fixture in Orange County’s business community.

We’ve upped our estimate for Pyott by a significant amount—$225 million, to be exact—to the $500 million minimum threshold for this year’s listing.

That increase is based on data and insight from trusted sources in the community, along with the realization that our prior estimates for the former Allergan CEO were likely on the low side.

Pyott first made our list in 2015, after his firm was acquired by Activis PLC the prior year for $66 billion.

Regulatory filings show that he cashed out some $543 million in stock and other sale-related payments following that drawn-out ordeal, which saw the drugmaker overcome a hostile takeover attempt from another drug firm, Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc., and hedge fund boss Bill Ackman.

Our prior research indicated Pyott’s wealth was already in the nine-figure range before his big payout, thanks to his long tenure and the generous compensation he earned at the helm of Allergan, a post he started in 1998 and left after the 2014 sale.

During that time he transformed Allergan from a small eye care business with approximately $1 billion in sales to a global pharmaceutical company with more than $7 billion in sales.

Since the 2014 sale to Actavis, Pyott has been active serving on the boards of several medical- and drug-related companies, but he says he’s not interested in serving as CEO anymore.

He’s also been active on the philanthropy front.

He’s worked to bring eyecare clinics to Africa, with the Scotland native creating a partnership with Edinburgh University for a clinic in Malawi or Zambia.

Past giving has included an emphasis on healthcare and Republican politics; the foundation of the American Academy of Ophthalmology has been a prior recipient of giving, as well as local medical-focused charities such as CHOC Foundation, J.F. Shea Therapeutic Riding Center, and United Way.

This June a new donation was announced: The David and Molly Pyott Foundation gave a $1.7 million gift to Easterseals Southern California.

The donation supports the expansion of the group’s adult day services on the site of the nonprofit’s current Santa Ana headquarters.

“With an estimated 376,000 individuals with developmental disabilities living in Southern California, approximately 47,500 in Orange County alone, and another 400 young adults ‘aging out’ of services each year, there is a great and growing demand for services and support,” he said of the June gift.

— Mark Mueller

38 DUANE ROBERTS

Chairman, Chief Executive

Entrepreneurial Corporate Group

Estimated worth: $500 million

We’ve raised the estimated wealth of frozen burrito entrepreneur Roberts by 2%.

It’s very much an estimate. Roberts’ Newport Beach-based Entrepreneurial Corporate Group keeps a low-key local presence, much like its chairman, with mentions of its real estate and other investments few and far between.

Trusted sources tell the Business Journal the firm owns more than 10,000 apartments—primarily in the Southwestern U.S.—in addition to British food manufacturers, restaurants, a fleet of charter aircraft, hotel-related investments, and an Oregon winery, among other ventures.

Roberts’ best-known property is in his native Riverside, the Mission Inn Hotel & Spa. He bought the inn in 1985 for $13.5 million, saving it from demolition. It was reopened in 1992.

The area landmark has hosted presidents and other well-known guests.

Roberts’ fortune tracks back to 1950, when his dad, Harry Roberts, started Butcher Boy Food Products Inc., a meat company that was the main supplier of beef patties to McDonald’s and other fast-food chains. Roberts dropped out of college to help him run the business.

At 19, he created what’s billed as the first frozen burrito and soon became president. He’d built Butcher Boy to six plants and 1,400 workers before he was 30.

Butcher Boy had an estimated $85 million in annual sales when the family sold it to Central Soya Inc. in 1980.

The company later became part of Tyson Foods Inc. before being sold to a private equity group.

Roberts went on to sell another company, Fernando’s Foods, to ConAgra Foods Inc. in the late 1990s for about $35 million in ConAgra stock.

Roberts took his food fortune and branched into real estate, banking and other investments.

He and his company are rarely mentioned in deals here, or elsewhere, for that matter. Other family members are prominent names in local businesses. Stepdaughter Casey Reinhardt is chief creative of Laguna Beach-based Casey’s Cupcakes, while his wife, Kelly, has her name on a Tuscan-style spa at the Mission Inn.

Kelly was said last year to be a potential ambassador to Slovenia. She opted to pull her name from consideration “due to the nature and scope of her family’s assets and the requirements of the applicable governmental ethical statutes,” according to a September 2017 statement.

The Roberts have been big backers of Republican causes in recent years.

Duane built the 17,000-square-foot Mary S. Roberts Pet Adoption Center, named after his mother. He’s a major long-term supporter of Santa Ana-based Olive Crest Children Treatment Centers Inc. and has given “seven figures” to Pepperdine University, where his stepdaughter attended.

The family has also given to Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian and Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital.

— Mark Mueller

38 MARK WETTERAU

Chief Executive, Chairman

Golden State Foods Corp.

Wetterau Associates LLC

Estimated worth: $500 million

Wetterau owns most of Golden State Foods in Irvine, the second-largest private company based in OC after PacLife, which had $6.9 billion in 2017 revenue, up from $6.1 billion year-over-year.

We’ve taken Wetterau’s wealth estimate up 20% on the strength of that 13% year-over-year increase in GSF revenue, a booming logistics industry, and recent plans to grow the company’s non-McDonald’s Corp. work via $1 billion-revenue unit Quality Custom Distribution Inc.

GSF distributes meats, sauces, produce and dairy products. It makes some, including at a $74 million meat processing plant in Alabama, but a big part of its work is logistics, specifically trucking.

The Wall Street Journal recently noted “the most robust freight market in a generation” for such firms, saying June was the 16th-straight monthly increase in the “spot market”—last-minute truck bookings—an industry bellwether. It’s the “longest sustained period of pricing power” since 1980s industry deregulation.

Last summer Wetterau chose a veteran of PepsiCo Inc.’s bottling and food distribution network to lead Quality Custom. While GSF’s main client lives under the Golden Arches, Quality Custom handles the rest, including Wendy’s, Chick-fil-A, Chipotle and Starbucks.

Those early into their OC offices are likely to pass a Quality Custom truck parked outside a location making a delivery. U.S.-wide, it runs a fleet of 1,700 trucks making 17,000 deliveries a week.

This month it opened a 183,000-square-foot distribution center in Fontana “to support Starbucks growth in Southern California” a spokesperson said via email.

Companywide, Golden State delivers to 125,000 restaurants in 60 countries on five continents.

Wetterau started out at an eponymous company founded by his great-grandfather in St. Louis, with roots to the 1860s. The firm sold in 1992 for $1.1 billion, and Wetterau later took a piece of Golden State, also a family business, started by the late Bill Moore in 1947. He bought out major partner Yucaipa Cos. in 2004.

His other investments have included a beer distributorship, a pizza chain and a wealth-management firm, all out of state.

He’s chairman of Golden State Foods Foundation, which has raised about $40 million since its 2002 founding for about 500 charities. Local backing and board service have included Ronald McDonald House; Big Brothers/ Big Sisters of OC and Second Harvest Food Bank.

—Paul Hughes