Los Angeles can claim bragging rights as home to Southern California’s wealthiest.
Sumner Redstone, chief executive of New York-based Viacom Inc., tops the region with an estimated worth of $8.3 billion, according to the Los Angeles Business Journal’s ranking in May.
No. 2 is Kirk Kerkorian, who’s bought a big chunk of General Motors Corp., among other investments, via his Beverly Hills-based investment company Tracinda Corp.
Kerkorian is worth $8.1 billion, according to the Los Angeles Business Journal.
Orange County nabs the No. 3 spot with The Irvine Company chairman and owner Donald Bren’s $8 billion, according to the Orange County Business Journal’s ranking.
Our estimate for Bren is admittedly conservative. Some insist he could be worth as much as $10 billion or more, based on his vast holdings of land, office buildings and other real estate.
OC’s No. 2,Ernest Rady,also appears on the San Diego Business Journal’s 2004 list as its second wealthiest person.
Rady is chairman and chief executive of Irvine-based Westcorp and chairman of WFS Financial Inc., also of Irvine. He lives in La Jolla.
Rady’s estimated worth: $2.2 billion, according to the Orange County Business Journal.
Our counterparts at the San Diego Business Journal estimated Rady at $1.3 billion for their November list.
Our estimate is higher based on a rise in the value of his Westcorp and WFS stock since last year and a more aggressive accounting of his other assets, which include real estate and an insurance business.
Rady recently gave $30 million to University of California, San Diego, which named its Rady School of Management after him.
According to the San Diego Business Journal’s list, the county’s richest person is Margaret Anne Cargill.
Cargill is one of eight heirs to Minneapolis-based grain trading company Cargill Inc. The privately held company is believed to be 90% owned by the Cargill family.
Margaret Cargill lives in La Jolla and is worth an estimated $1.5 billion (Rady would be No. 1 in San Diego if the Orange County Business Journal’s estimate was used).
Back up in L.A., 12 others are worth more than Rady and Cargill.
They include DreamWorks Studios and Geffen Records cofounder David Geffen, at $4.3 billion, and Staples Center co-developer Edward Roski Jr., at $2.8 billion. Roski’s Industry-based Majestic Realty Co. is the largest commercial developer in Southern California.
Like Rady, San Diego has another OC crossover: Ted Waitt, founder and former chairman of Gateway Inc.
Waitt, who lives in La Jolla, moved Gateway’s headquarters from South Dakota to San Diego in 1998. He and his brother started Gateway in Iowa in 1985, turning the company into a $650 million fortune for Waitt, according to the San Diego Business Journal.
Waitt is No. 8 on San Diego’s list. Last year Gateway moved to OC after it bought Irvine-based eMachines and put its chief executive, Wayne Inouye, in charge.
There are plenty of OC links among L.A.’s wealthiest.
Take John Shea and family, valued at $2.4 billion by the L.A. Business Journal.
The family’s parent company, J.F. Shea Co., is based in Walnut, just over the county line from Brea. Shea Properties, its commercial real estate arm that holds 15 million square feet of space, is run out of Aliso Viejo. Peter Shea Jr., J.F. Shea’s chief executive, lives in Newport Beach.
Roland Arnall, founder and chairman of Orange-based Ameriquest Capital Corp., is worth $2.1 billion, according to the L.A. Business Journal, same as on our list.
Arnall lives in Holmby Hills, where he bought singer Engelbert Humperdinck’s 10-acre compound in Holmby Hills for about $30 million in 2002. He also owns a 650-acre ranch in Aspen, Colo.
Arnall was born in Paris, moved to Montreal after World War II and then to California in the 1950s.
Anthony Pritzker, which the L.A. Business Journal estimates at $1.5 billion, also has a key OC tie.
Pritzker’s Chicago-based family controls the Hyatt hotel chain. But Anthony Pritzker has settled out West,in Holmby Hills, like Arnall. Pritzker started Seal Beach-based Pritzker Group LLC with brother J.B. in 2002, using family funds.
Last year the Pritzkers sold Seal Beach’s Baker Tanks Inc. to Chicago private equity firm Code Hennessy & Simmons LLC for $275 million. The company rents truck tanks and other gear.
Another local Pritzker deal last year was the sale of Buena Park Downtown in November. The Pritzkers sold the 1.1 million-square-foot shopping center to Diversified Realty and Coventry Real Estate Advisors for about $91 million.
John Tu, a Rolling Hills resident, is cofounder of Fountain Valley-based Kingston Technology Co. The Business Journal estimates his worth at $700 million, slightly less than where our counterparts in Los Angeles have him.
Tu was born in China and moved to the U.S. in 1972. He’s an avid Elvis Presley fan who plays drums in his own band with professional musicians.
Another of L.A.’s rich, Steven Ferencz Udvar-Hazy, is on our list of the Weekend Wealthy with a Monarch Beach home.
Udvar-Hazy, worth $3 billion, made his fortune with International Lease Finance Corp. He and his partners sold the aircraft leasing company to American International Group in 1990.
Staff writers with the Los Angeles Business Journal and San Diego Business Journal contributed to this report.
