# 11 – Caroline Getty
Governing Council Officer
The Wilderness Society
Estimated worth: $1 billion
# 11 – Anne Catherine Getty Earhart
Heiress to J. Paul Getty
Founder, president
Marisla Foundation
Estimated worth: $1 billion
Caroline Getty and sister Anne Earhart are among 16 grandchildren of late oil tycoon J. Paul Getty.
They fund environmental and Democratic causes with their oil inheritance.
Earhart lives in Corona del Mar. She is the founder of Marisla Foundation in Laguna Beach, which unsuccessfully fought the San Joaquin Hills (73) Toll Road in the 1990s.
Earhart gave richly to Democratic candidates in 2008, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Al Franken. A $400,000 gift to the American Bridge PAC—which describes itself as a “progressive research and communications organization committed to holding Republicans accountable for their words and actions”—is among her reported political contributions this year.
Earhart supported the successful fight against Proposition 23, which sought to suspend global warming laws, in 2010. She supported the successful Proposition 22, which prohibits the state from redirecting funds from local governments.
Marisla Foundation gave $36.9 million in 2010, the most recent year for which data is available. That is a 13.5% drop from 2009. The foundation has helped fund the preservation of coral reefs on the island of Menjangan off the coast of Bali, Indonesia. Earhart is an avid diver.
Getty also is an environmental activist. She’s a member of the governing council of The Wilderness Society and has served on the boards of the World Wildlife Fund and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
Our estimation of their worth at $1 billion each is based on a long-standing conservative analysis that continues and reflects modest gains for the stock market and other asset classes over the past year.
Their grandfather struck oil in 1953 and founded Getty Oil Co. in 1956. He died in 1976.
A 1985 settlement gave Earhart, Caroline Getty and another daughter of his late son, George Franklin Getty II, $750 million each.
The family sold part of Getty Oil to what’s now Chevron Corp. for $10 billion in 1986. Caroline Getty and Earhart got an additional $400 million each from the sale.
The sisters are two of the nation’s richest women. Both tend to keep a low profile, though Getty more so.
—Sherri Cruz
# 11 – Vincent “Vinny” Smith
Executive chairman, chief
executive officer
Quest Software Inc.
Estimated worth: $1 billion
Vincent “Vinny” Smith trails only Don Bren’s gain since last year.
Smith is set to enter the local billionaire’s club when Dell Inc.’s $2.4 billion bid to acquire Aliso Viejo-based Quest Software Inc. closes this quarter.
The FTC signed off on the deal in July, clearing a key regulatory hurdle before it winds through final closing conditions.
Smith is poised to see his wealth hit the $1 billion mark once the deal closes.
Dell’s offer of $28 a share put Quest’s market value at $2.36 billion.
Smith has about 34% of outstanding shares, which put his stake at $800 million. That’s up from $450 million a year ago, when Quest was trading at about $16 a share.
We estimated Smith at $650 million, and the $350 million gain due on the sale to Dell puts him right on the $1 billion mark. That is a conservative estimate, as he’s known as a savvy investor with various side ventures, including real estate and restaurants.
The Dell deal came just a few months after Smith returned to the chief executive post at Quest, replacing Doug Garn, who stepped down for health reasons. Smith served in that role from 1997 to 2008, when he became executive chairman.
Smith has kept a low public profile at the county’s largest publicly traded software company, which specializes in software that helps corporations become more efficient by improving on existing applications by Oracle Corp., Microsoft Corp. and others.
His influence has been center stage. Quest became a market leader in database development and optimization under his leadership, with more than 2 million users, and a major presence in Microsoft’s infrastructure management market.
Smith’s achievements also included developing simplified applications for cloud computing and virtualization.
Quest topped $857 million in revenue in 2011, up nearly 12% from a year earlier.
Smith has a casual air—he goes by Vinny and often sports jeans and a cap.
Smith started his career with Oracle after graduating from the University of Delaware in 1986. In 1992, he started San Francisco-based Patrol Software with an Oracle colleague. BMC Software Inc. bought Patrol in 1994.
His interest in Quest grew through an investment his Insight Capital Partners made in 1995. He took a seat on Quest’s board and gradually became more involved, becoming chief executive in 1997 and chairman a year later after leaving a life on the Colorado ski slopes.
Smith supports several charitable causes, including the Miocean Foundation; Augie’s Quest, which battles Lou Gehrig’s disease; and various kids programs.
—Chris Casacchia
# 14 – Ronald Simon
Founder, chairman
RSI Holding Corp.
Estimated worth: $700 million
Land development isn’t on Ron Simon’s agenda these days, but a new push to claim ground as a contract builder is.
Simon is founder and chairman of Newport Beach-based RSI Holding Corp., the parent company of household cabinet maker RSI Professional Cabinet Solutions.
Simon sold half of RSI to Canada-based Onex Corp. for $318 million in 2008.
That sale provides a good portion of our valuation of Simon’s wealth, which is up to $700 million this year based on likely modest gains from ongoing businesses and investments.
RSI Holding has estimated annual revenue of $500 million.
Real estate holdings, stocks and other asset classes make up the other sources of Simon’s wealth.
Simon started a homebuilding business, RSI Development LP, in 2009. The venture has $100 million in funding and builds easily assembled, low-priced homes, using the same “precision-built” manufacturing techniques first honed by Simon at Professional Cabinet Solutions.
The new venture’s seen some success, and the company—operating under The New House name—sold out its initial development of 100 homes in Menifee, east of Temecula.
A subsequent Inland Empire project saw slower sales, as potential buyers in the Beaumont area—where the unemployment rate is around 13%—had trouble qualifying for mortgages. That led Simon to offer renters lease deals with an option to buy.
The plans now are to make RSI Development a “super-sub” for homebuilders, developers and real estate investors.
“We don’t want to be in the land business,” Simon told the Business Journal last month.
“We are not interested in competing with big homebuilders,” Simon said. “We want to build for them.”
New Home also is looking to build replacement homes for owners of older houses who want to upgrade or fill a vacant lot. The company plans to replace older homes and put up its own, higher-quality houses at prices well below what’s typically seen for a new home construction or remodeling.
Simon was born in East Los Angeles to a Russian mother and English father.
He studied engineering at Los Angeles City College, and thought about starting his own business before his father convinced him to join his medicine cabinet business, Perma-Bilt.
Simon eventually took control and grew it to be the largest maker of medicine cabinets, vanities and marble countertops.
He sold Perma-Bilt to an Australian company in 1987, a time when Asian manufacturers were making it tougher to compete.
Simon, who had stayed on as a Perma-Bilt director, came up with a plan to remain competitive while keeping manufacturing in the U.S., but he saw it rejected by the new owners. So he took the plan and founded RSI. A few years later Perma-Bilt was out of business.
—Mark Mueller
# 15 – William Lyon
Chairman, chief executive
William Lyon Homes Inc.
Estimated worth: $650 million
Financial restructuring at his namesake homebuilding company had an effect on our latest valuation on the wealth of Gen. William Lyon.
We’ve cut the estimate for the chairman and chief executive of Newport Beach-based homebuilder William Lyon Homes Inc. to $650 million, down $75 million from last year.
Lyon is an iconic builder whose company and its predecessors have sold some 100,000 homes since 1956. We conservatively estimated Lyon to be a billionaire at the peak of the last housing boom.
Lyon took his company private in 2006, in a deal that saw him buy out all of the shares he didn’t own for about $275 million. The deal valued William Lyon Homes at close to $950 million at the time, but the subsequent housing slump soon took a deep toll on the company’s fortunes.
The past year saw William Lyon Homes restructure its debt to a more manageable figure after filing for a prepackaged bankruptcy plan.
The restructuring left Lyon and his family with about 20% of the slimmed-down builder, plus warrants to buy an additional 9% of the company’s common stock.
Lyon and his family owned about 95% of the company prior to the restructuring.
The homebuilder is just part of the wealth of Lyon, who has relinquished more duties to his son, Bill H. Lyon, who serves as president of the company.
This year’s estimate involved some guesswork and operates under the assumption that our prior downgrades to Lyon’s wealth already factored in the bulk of the builder’s falling valuation. Part of the guesswork involves Lyon Apartments Co., which manages 11,000 apartments, many of which are believed to be owned by Lyon himself.
Lyon also is known for his classic car and plane collection. He has some 100 classic, antique cars including 10 Duesenbergs, of which only 480 were made. He also has a collection of old warplanes and sponsors the Lyon Air Museum near John Wayne Airport.
Known as “The General,” 89-year-old Lyon 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.
He’s one of the county’s biggest philanthropists and supporters of Republican candidates.
—Mark Mueller
# 11 – Victor Tsao
General partner
Janie Tsao
President
Miven Venture Partners
Estimated worth: $600 million
Janie and Victor Tsao, one of Orange County’s wealthiest business couples, continue to keep a low profile in their ventures and in Orange County.
They’ve had that strategy since they sold Linksys Group Inc. to Cisco Systems Inc. for $500 million in 2003. They stayed on for a while after the deal closed, working for Cisco in China, but have cut ties since then.
Cisco largely has absorbed Linksys, a top maker of routers and other home networking gear. Its campus near the University of California, Irvine, became a hub for Cisco’s consumer efforts, which are aimed at spurring sales of the company’s routers. The shutdown of the company’s Flip video camera operation resulted in Cisco cutbacks in Irvine and companywide.
The Tsaos run Miven Ventures Partners, a $100 million venture fund. The company doesn’t have a website and rarely touts a financing deal.
The Business Journal wasn’t able to find one investment the firm made in the past year.
In mid-2011 Miven participated in a $24 million third-round financing for ViVOtech Inc., a Santa Clara software maker for business payment and marketing. The company has raised some $75 million. Miven, a prior investor, could be in for a payday if its planned initial public offering comes to fruition this year.
Miven also joined a handful of investors last year in a $12 million financing round for Celeno Communications, an Israeli chipmaker that specializes in Wi-Fi applications for high-definition video in homes.
Miven had been a previous investor in the company.
Victor Tsao spends a few months of each year on the road, looking for investments in Silicon Valley, China, India, Israel and Vietnam.
Janie Tsao runs day-to-day operations.
A few of Miven’s investments didn’t survive the recent recession.
Sunnyvale-based Tzero Technologies Inc. shut down in 2009. TechTribe Networks, a job-referral website in India, hasn’t taken off.
Miven scored a win in 2010 with Sunnyvale-based ZeroG Wireless Inc., which was bought by Arizona-based Microchip Technology Inc. on undisclosed terms.
We estimate the Tsaos at $600 million, even with the year-ago estimate, based on the assumption that their investment savvy matched the rise of the Dow Jones Industrial Average the last 12 months.
Our estimate of their wealth begins with the sale to Cisco and other investments they are said to have made since then. They are believed to have diversified out of most Cisco shares.
Victor Tsao is big on mentoring entrepreneurs in the U.S. and China, where both of the Tsaos were born.
Janie Tsao also heads the Tsao Family Foundation in Corona del Mar, which gave $159,300 in the 12 months through last September, more than triple its contribution from the previous year. Its largest donations went to the Center for Asian American Media in San Francisco, the University of California, Irvine, and Irvine Canaan Christian Community Church.
Both serve on various advisory boards for startups and continue giving to causes in education and medical research, among others.
The Miven Venture Partners Scholarship was established by the Tsao Family Foundation and Miven Venture Partners at California State University, Fullerton, to support students who need financial assistance.
—Chris Casacchia
# 17 – Howard Ahmanson Jr.
Trustee, Fieldstead and Co. Inc.
Estimated worth: $575 million
Howard Ahmanson, heir to the Home Savings of America fortune, funds religious and conservative causes from a newly built, Old World-style mansion spanning three lots on Corona del Mar’s Ocean Boulevard.
The 12,000-square-foot home—finished in late 2010 and estimated to be worth about $30 million—is called Casa de Los Peregrinos, or house of the pilgrims. It features a backyard chapel, stunning ocean views and rustic touches that draw a lot of attention from neighbors and passersby.
It also speaks to the tastes, wealth and idiosyncrasies of its owner.
Ahmanson and his wife, Roberta, are financiers of conservative cultural, religious and political causes.
In 2011, Capitol Resource Institute, an organization Ahmanson co-founded, led an unsuccessful petition drive against state Senate Bill 48, which ultimately was signed into law and requires public schools to include milestones of prominent gay people in lessons.
The institute has also supported legislation that would make divorces harder to get. It has opposed legislation that would have made spanking a crime, and it has opposed stiffer penalties for hate crimes.
Ahmanson gave $1.1 million to support Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in California. He’s a board member of Seattle-based Discovery Institute, known for its advocacy of intelligent design.
Ahmanson also serves on the boards of John M. Perkins Foundation in Jackson, Miss., and the Claremont Institute.
He’s been a big supporter of Tustin-based Orange County Rescue Mission, an organization that helps homeless people get back on their feet through a year-long Christian-based residence program.
He surprised many in 2009 when he said he registered as a Democrat. He said he was turned off by the California Republican Party’s sole focus on resisting new taxes. He’s not necessarily bound to either party and donated to Republican Congressman Mike Pence as well as Democrat Elizabeth Warren’s campaign for U.S. Senate in 2011.
The Ahmansons do a lot of humanitarian work on race relations, feeding the hungry and other causes.
Ahmanson has Tourette’s syndrome, a neurological disorder that can result in involuntary body movements and repetitive, compulsive thoughts. He’s engaged with local issues, and his Corona del Mar home has carried banners opposing a proposed ban on fire pits at the neighborhood beach.
Roberta is a former religion writer for the Orange County Register and author of Blind Spot: When Journalists Don’t Get Religion.
The Ahmansons collect Biblical art. Ahmanson chairs the board of directors for the Museum of Biblical Art in New York City. They’ve supported a number of religious oriented art exhibitions in the U.S. and Great Britain.
We estimate Ahmanson’s wealth at $575 million, about even with our year-ago estimate based on the modest growth in the stock market and his pattern of giving. Our estimate is conservative, and Ahmanson could be worth more.
His father, Howard Fieldstead Ahmanson, Sr., started and grew Home Savings & Loan, which was bought for $10 billion in 1998 by Washington Mutual Inc.
The elder Ahmanson spent much of his later years as a philanthropist, with the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles and the Ahmanson Gallery at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art named in his honor.
Ahmanson Sr.’s death in 1968 led to a split in his estate, with the Beverly Hills-based Ahmanson Foundation and then-18-year-old Howard Ahmanson, Jr., each getting half.
The foundation, of which Ahmanson is a trustee, has $949 million in assets and gave $43 million for 12 months through October 2010, the most recently period for which data is available.
—Sherri Cruz
# 18 – Lynsi Martinez
Owner, president
In-N-Out Burgers Inc.
Estimated worth: $525 million
In-N-Out Burgers Inc. continued its push into Texas and now counts 15 restaurants in the state, up from three a year ago, with Lynsi Martinez at the helm.
A Dallas distribution center has handled the growth and offers the potential for more growth there, and there’s been buzz that the company is now eyeing Nebraska and other Great Plains states.
The apparent success in Texas—where In-N-Outs opened to huge crowds—and the logistics behind the expansion open new possibilities for the chain, which still counts the vast majority of its restaurants in California, Arizona, Nevada and Utah. The chain’s growth had been limited to a 500-mile radius around its Baldwin Park distribution center, part of a longstanding emphasis on ensuring that they have a sure supply of fresh ingredients.
The expansion in Texas and ongoing strength for In-N-Out in its core markets lead us to estimate Lynsi Martinez’s wealth at $525 million, up about 5% from a year ago, based on the success in replicating its distribution model in Texas and the new operations there.
The 30-year-old heir is president of the chain founded by her grandparents, Harry and Esther Snyder, in 1948 in Baldwin Park. It now has about $500 million in annual sales. She owns about a third of the company and is in line to take ownership shares of the company by the time she is 35. Those anticipated shares figure into our estimate.
Martinez is the company’s sixth president and took the helm after the death of her grandmother in 2006.
She keeps a low profile, and the company also stays out of the media spotlight. An exception came in in 2005, when former executive Richard Boyd filed a lawsuit alleging Martinez was attempting to remove her grandmother from the top spot. The company filed a countersuit accusing Boyd of embezzlement and fraud.
The matter was settled in 2006.
—Kari Hamanaka
# 19 – David Wilson
Owner, chief executive
David Wilson Automotive Group
Estimated worth: $425 million
David Wilson owns Toyota of Orange, Newport Lexus and 14 other auto dealerships representing six brands that combined for nearly $1.8 billion in sales last year.
He’s gotten the benefit of the general upturn for auto sales, and some of his Orange County dealerships saw revenue increases of a much as 30%.
Our estimate of his wealth is based on David Wilson Automotive Group’s longstanding position as a leading dealer in terms of vehicles and revenue in the U.S., the updraft in fortunes for the auto industry in general, and information from sources close to the operation.
Wilson has worked as a car washer and oil-change mechanic, and he made his way through college in the late 1960s selling cars. Toyota of Orange hired him as general manager in 1982, and he quadrupled sales to 8,000 vehicles a year in less than two years. He purchased the dealership outright in 1985.
The Wilson Automotive Group now counts seven Toyota, three Lexus and three Honda dealerships. There is also one each of Acura, Ford and Mazda dealerships. That comes to almost 2,000 employees at the group’s properties, located mostly in California in addition to Arizona and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
A new Volkswagen dealership is being built in the Inland Empire and is expected to open in spring 2013.
Wilson’s dealerships have donated millions of dollars to local schools, charities and non-profits.
—Kari Hamanaka
# 19 – Fletcher “Ted” Jones Jr.
Chief executive
Fletcher Jones Management Group Inc.
Estimated worth: $425 million
Fletcher “Ted” Jones Jr.’s operations have grown to 19 dealerships in four states, with eight brands including Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Audi and Toyota.
Its flagship Mercedes-Benz dealership in Newport Beach has been the marque’s top seller in the U.S. for 13 years. It had sales of about $520 million in 2011, up 21% from a year earlier. It’s the second-largest auto dealership by revenue in the U.S., trailing only Longo Toyota in El Monte. Group sales last year were about $1.4 billion, up 15% from the previous year.
Jones continues expanding on the business his father began in 1946 at 7th Street and Vermont Avenue in Los Angeles.
An Audi dealership on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills opened in February. Mercedes-Benz of Ontario followed in July. Another Mercedes-Benz dealership is expected in Temecula in late 2013, and Fletcher Jones Motorcars General Manager Garth Blumenthal will be an equity partner.
We estimate Jones’ wealth up $75 million from last year, based on a reconsideration of past year’s estimates, the new dealerships and the ongoing recovery in sales of luxury vehicles amid a general lift for the automotive industry overall.
Fletcher Jones Management is based in Las Vegas. Jones has a home in Peninsula Point in Newport Beach and has an office at Fletcher Jones Motorcars, where Blumenthal oversees day-to-day business.
Jones’ portfolio now includes Billy’s at the Beach on Pacific Coast Highway, a favored hangout of his that he bought about a year ago.
His dealerships contribute to numerous charities through sponsorships, its Fletcher Jones School Fund and golf tournaments. The Newport Beach dealership donated to more than 250 local organizations and schools last year. Jones replaced Newport Harbor High School’s scoreboard and also helped resurface the school’s playing field.
—Kari Hamanaka
