A new race has emerged for the top spot as the richest person in Orange County.
Henry Samueli has ridden a Broadcom Inc. rocket ship to boost his estimated wealth by 60% to $17.6 billion, according to the Business Journal’s annual list of the wealthiest in Orange County.
The Broadcom chairman now closely trails perennial leader Irvine Co. owner Donald Bren, whose wealth climbed an estimated 1.7% to $18.3 billion.
This week’s issue lists 41 billionaires who either reside or have homes in Orange County. The list cutoff is $1.25 billion.
Cumulatively, they had a great year as their wealth climbed 25% to $208 billion during the year, ended June 30. Their combined wealth is higher than the gross domestic product of Algeria and 120 other countries.
While the S&P 500 index rose 23% in this period, we assumed an increase of half that for security investments, given that other equities increased less, as did fixed income, except for executives whose equity holdings are known and performed differently.
Even while using these relatively conservative estimates, there were some notable blowout performances.
AI Gains
The big story is the rise of Broadcom, which Samueli and fellow wealthiest list member Henry Nicholas (No. 9) co-founded in 1991.
The company was sold in 2016 to Avago Technologies for $37 billion in cash and stock.
Avago, which had a similar value at that time, kept the name and moved the headquarters to San Jose. Samueli remained as chairman and now holds an estimated 1.9% of the company.
Since Broadcom shares began surging in 2020, they’ve risen about six-fold to a split adjusted $152.20 each and a $709 billion market cap, making it one of the world’s most valuable publicly traded companies (Nasdaq: AVGO).
During that four-year span, we estimated Samueli’s worth has more than tripled from $5.5 billion in 2020.
The amount also includes the Anaheim Ducks, now valued at about $925 million, and real estate in Anaheim where he is developing the OCVibe.
The stock has surged as investors bet the company’s technology will benefit from artificial intelligence. Its second quarter revenue jumped 43% to $12.5 billion, including $3.1 billion for AI products. The company’s doing so well that in March it paid a cash dividend totaling $2.4 billion, which implies a cool $46 million for Samueli alone.
Meanwhile, we estimate that Bren’s worth increased 1.7% to $18.3 billion, despite the meltdown in the office sector.
While high-rise offices have cratered in price in the past year as the work-from-home trend affects occupancies, the lower industry valuations may have only somewhat affected Bren’s 590 offices.
We don’t think Bren’s offices have fallen as much as others because he owns Class A structures in highly desirable areas such as Silicon Valley, the Irvine Spectrum and New York City’s famed MetLife Building.
Furthermore, apartments are still in favor on Wall Street, where the FTSE Nareit All Residential Capped Index returned 9% for the year, ended June 30. Bren owns 125 apartment communities with 65,000 units.
No one in Orange County would rank among the wealthiest 100 billionaires on Bloomberg’s list, which ranked Bren at No. 121 with a wealth of $17.4 billion.
Decliners
We estimate that only six entries saw their wealth decline.
The biggest drop was an estimated 25% to $1.8 billion for Luen Hei Wong, who owns a home in Newport Harbor. He chairs Hong-Kong listed China Lesso, a supplier of building materials like pipes and windows (2128.HK). Shares are down about 35% for the year, ended June 30.
Another big drop was 15% to $1.87 billion for RJ Scaringe, founder and chief executive of Irvine-based electric vehicle maker Rivian (Nasdaq: RIVN). Its shares dropped 19% during this time period, although they have rallied 21% this month on news of a $5 billion investment from the Volkswagen Group.
When Scaringe debuted on our 2021 list, we estimated his wealth at $5 billion.
Notables
• Our biggest estimated increase was 169% to $12.1 billion for No. 4 Ernest Garcia II because his stock in Carvana Co. (NYSE: CVNA) tripled in the past year, and he owns 150 used car dealerships in the nation.
• We estimated Patrick Soon-Shiong’s wealth jumped 60% to $12 billion because of the success of his newest company ImmunityBio, which in April won FDA approval to treat bladder cancer with its Anktiva. The company calls this treatment “next generation” medication.
• Valuation for Costa Mesa-based Anduril Industries, Palmer Luckey’s second startup that became a unicorn, is reportedly approaching $12.5 billion, up from a prior $8.5 valuation. So, we bumped up Luckey’s estimated worth 47% to $5 billion.
• Irvine-based Vizio Holding Corp., a well-known national brand as maker of flat-panel smart TVs, sound bars and other products, was offered $2.3 billion by Walmart in a deal that hasn’t yet closed as of press time. Since Wang owns 89% of Class A and Class B shares, we increased-his estimate by 15% to $1.5 billion.
• We might have long underestimated the wealth of Lynsi Snyder, who owns 96% of what many argue is the nation’s best hamburger chain – Irvine-based In-N-Out Burger Inc.
The more than 400-store chain posted $2.1 billion in 2023 revenue, up 16% year-over-year.
In comparison, Newport Beach-based Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. – arguably the nation’s best Mexican fast-food chain (NYSE: CMG) – reported revenue grew 14% to $9.9 billion in 2023.
If we compare the two companies by a popular Wall Street metric, Chipotle’s $71 billion market cap is an industry leading seven times annual sales.
If same metric is used for In-N-Out, it could be valued at $14 billion. For now, we choose to make a conservative estimate of three times sales, which puts Snyder’s worth around $6 billion, an 88% jump from our estimate last year.
