DAVID SUN
Cofounder, chief operating officer, Kingston Technology Co.
Estimated worth: $2 billion
Call them the reluctant billionaires.
Many people on our list prefer not to have attention drawn to their wealth. Then there are David Sun and John Tu, who shy away from any talk about their wealth. Both men have requested not to be on our list.
This year, Sun and Tu, co-owners of Fountain Valley-based Kingston Technology Co., saw a big jump in their estimated wealth, leapfrogging Broadcom Corp. cofounders Henry Samueli and Henry Nicholas and real estate executives who’ve seen their fortunes decrease in the past year.
Much of the increase is due to a revision of our conservatively low figure of a year ago, when both where were estimated at $900 million apiece.
Part of the higher figure also stems from Kingston’s ability to grow during a down time for makers of computer memory products.
Low prices for memory chips,the building blocks of products from Kingston and others,have checked growth for much of the industry.
But last year, Kingston posted record sales of $4.5 billion, up from $3.7 billion in 2006. A push into flash memory for consumer devices and Kingston’s dominant stake in memory products have allowed the company to grow while others have slipped.
We still differ in our estimate from Forbes, which put Sun and Tu at $2.5 billion each in September. We suspect that estimate places too much emphasis on Kingston’s flash memory business, which generates a higher valuation but only makes up about a fourth of the company’s business.
The bulk of Kingston’s sales come from memory modules for computers, which aren’t as valuable amid low prices for memory chips.
We’ve come up with our estimate for Kingston by comparing the company to a handful of other memory products makers,Fremont-based Smart Modular Technologies Inc., Santa Ana’s STEC Inc. and Milpitas-based SanDisk Corp.
We also presume a premium for Kingston, given its role as the largest maker of memory products. Kingston has about 20% of the market for memory modules.
Fortune came to Tu and Sun after building up Kingston and then selling 80% of the company to Japan’s Softbank Corp. for $1.5 billion in 1996. Three years later, they bought it back at a discount.
They’re surrounded by supporters at Kingston. The two made headlines when they handed out $100 million in bonuses to workers after selling the company to Softbank.
Both men are on their second fortunes, having founded memory products maker Camintonn in the 1980s and selling it to Irvine computer maker AST Research Inc.
They left AST to start Kingston after losing millions in Camintonn proceeds in the 1987 stock market crash.
Kingston has put its name behind a handful of fundraising events by local nonprofits, including the Boys & Girls Clubs of Huntington Beach and Fountain Valley and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, which has a chapter in Irvine.
The company is set to sponsor the foundation’s annual “Walk to Cure Diabetes” in November in Orange County.
Tu and Sun also have sent donations for international disaster relief efforts in recent years.
Sun has given to Taiwanese charities, the Presbyterian Church and education causes.
Tu has given to stem cell research, inspired in part by friend and AST cofounder Tom Yuen, a dialysis patient. He’s also given to other healthcare-related groups and to the homeless.
In Erin Gruwell’s “The Freedom Writers Diary,” a book that was made into a movie starring Hillary Swank last year, Tu is the businessman benefactor for a group of inner city high school kids.
Tu helped buy computers for the students and paid for them to visit some of the places they were studying, including Poland’s Auschwitz and Bosnia.
His band, JT and California Dreamin’, has played fundraisers for Chapman University, Bowers Museum and South Coast Repertory. Tu also supports the Chinese Cultural Center in Irvine and has provided money for Henry Lee’s department of forensic science at the University of New Haven.
Tu, originally from China, moved to the U.S. in 1972. Sun, who was born in Taiwan, came in 1977.
,Sarah Tolkoff
Henry Samueli has pulled back from Irvine’s Broadcom Corp., but the chipmaker he cofounded still is the source of his wealth.
In June, Samueli pleaded guilty to a felony count of lying to federal investigators about his role in granting backdated stock options at Broadcom.
He’s set to pay $12.2 million in fines and see three to five years of probation.
A month before the plea deal was announced, Samueli stepped down as Broadcom’s chairman and took a leave of absence from his longtime post as chief technology officer.
He now is a technology adviser to Chief Executive Scott McGregor.
Samueli still is a dominant Broadcom shareholder. He owns 34.7 million shares of the company worth about $1 billion. He controls 30% of the company’s voting shares.
Since Broadcom went public in 1998, he’s sold about $900 million worth of stock.
Samueli owns slightly more shares than cofounder Henry Nicholas, who left the company in 2003 and is set to stand trial on financial fraud and drug charges next year.
Our estimates for both men are based on their Broadcom holdings and stock sales they’ve parlayed into other investments.
Samueli’s legal fees and pending fine aren’t seen as having a big impact on his wealth.
Both he and Nicholas are estimated down from last year’s $2 billion with a slide in Broadcom’s stock that started in late 2007 and has eased some this year (with a dip late last month). In the past year, the shares are off about 25% with a recent market value of $12 billion.
One of Samueli’s other investments is the Anaheim Ducks hockey team, winner of the 2007 Stanley Cup championship.
A lifelong hockey fan, he bought the team from Walt Disney Co. for $75 million in 2005. The Ducks now could be worth $150 million.
In June, the National Hockey League suspended Samueli from involvement with the team, pending his sentencing hearing this month on the plea deal, which a judge can accept, amend or reject.
The options scandal has bruised Samueli’s image, though he’s still respected by many as an engineering genius and generous philanthropist.
He’s given to the University of California’s Irvine and Los Angeles campuses, which named their engineering schools after him. A library is named for his parents at Chapman University.
Samueli’s name is on a theater at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. He’s also given to the Ocean Institute, Jewish Federation of Orange County, Shoah Foundation, University Synagogue and other causes.
Wife Susan is a big supporter of alternative medicine,UC Irvine’s Susan Samueli Center for Integrative Medicine is named for her.
The Samuelis give to numerous nonprofits through their foundation. In all, they’ve given more than $200 million in the past decade.
,Sarah Tolkoff
Broadcom Corp. cofounder Henry “Nick” Nicholas is putting his wealth to work in the battle of his life: a pending trial on federal financial fraud and drug charges.
Nicholas, who left as Broadcom chief executive in 2003, is set to go to trial next year on 21 counts of plotting to back-date options for employees at the Irvine chipmaker.
Separately, Nicholas was charged with using and distributing drugs.
Known for midnight meetings and a take-no-prisoners approach to running Broadcom, Nicholas is expected to mount a high-priced defense.
Nicholas’ legal issues presumably haven’t dented his wealth. Legal costs could become more significant as he moves closer to trial.
Like cofounder Henry Samueli, Nicholas still is a Broadcom dominant shareholder. He owns 32 million Broadcom shares worth about $930 million. He controls 28% of the company’s voting shares.
Since Broadcom went public in 1998, Nicholas has sold about $900 million worth of stock and continues to do so.
Our estimate is based on Nicholas’ Broadcom holdings and stock sales he’s parlayed into other investments.
Nicholas is estimated down from $2 billion last year with a slide in Broadcom’s stock that started in late 2007 but has eased some this year, with a dip late last month. In the past year, the shares are off about 25% with a recent market value of $12 billion.
Wall Street hasn’t given a second glance to the legal issues of Broadcom’s founders.
After leaving Broadcom, Nicholas in 2004 gave $3.3 million to help defeat Proposition 66, which would have weakened California’s three strikes law.
He’s also given research prize money to University of California, Irvine, students. He’s supported other educational causes, including a $10 million donation in 2004 to St. Margaret’s Episcopal School in San Juan Capistrano, where his kids attend.
In 2007, he pledged to give more than $100 million to various charities during five years. Earlier this year, he committed $10 million to start after-school programs for low-income students in Orange County.
The money was slated for the Nicholas Academic Center at 412 W. Fourth St. in Santa Ana,near the federal courthouse where he’s set to stand trial.
Nicholas’ foundation is finalizing plans with the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles to open similar centers in San Juan Capistrano and the Echo Park section of Los Angeles.
Nicholas has continued work on victim’s rights.
Earlier this year he helped propose legislation named for his sister, who was murdered by an ex-boyfriend. It would create a bill of rights for crime victims.
Nicholas supports the nonprofit Justice for Homicide Victims Inc. He gave $2.5 million for a crime victims’ memorial in Sacramento.
Divorce proceedings between Nicholas and wife Stacey, a former Broadcom engineer, were put on hold for a time this year as Nicholas deals with his legal issues, according to a source familiar with the situation. The proceedings have stalled over custody issues, the source said.
The divorce stands to impact our future estimate of Nicholas, though some say the two could settle for less than half of his wealth.
Nicholas, citing stress and concerns about alcoholism, did two stints in rehab this year.
The first was a 30-day stay at the Betty Ford Center (at about $24,000). The second was a longer stay at an exclusive resort-style facility in Malibu, which costs more than $60,000 a month.
,Sarah Tolkoff
Would you trade your pride and joy for $1.3 billion? Jim Jannard finally did.
The founder of Foothill Ranch-based sunglasses and clothes maker Oakley Inc. had a 64% stake in the company and saw a $1.3 billion payday in the $2.1 billion sale to Italy’s Luxottica Group SPA in November.
We estimate Jannard’s wealth at $1.6 billion based on the company sale, past stock sales and other investments.
Our figure differs from Forbes’ $2 billion estimate in September. Our estimate takes into account Jannard’s spending on drag racing and other hobbies, as well as a divorce.
Jannard said he plans to keep money in Luxottica and signed a five-year non-compete deal. He no longer is Oakley’s chairman but kept the titles of “chief mad scientist” and “chief visionary.”
A side project is taking more of Jannard’s time.
He started Lake Forest-based Red Digital Cinema Camera Co., a digital movie camera maker, in 2005.
The company specializes in digital, cinema-quality cameras that are cheaper to use.
Red Digital’s camera lenses are the same kind used in Oakley’s sunglasses.
Early models of the camera, which cost about $17,500 apiece, are shipping after some initial glitches.
In 1975, Jannard started Oakley by selling motorcycle grips out of his station wagon. He eventually added goggles and sunglasses.
Jannard keeps a low profile. The media shy executive rarely grants interviews or photos.
He splits his time between Orange County and the channel islands of Washington state.
,Jessica Lee
A tough year for commercial real estate and shaky times on Wall Street touched the wealth of George Argyros.
We lowered our estimate for the former U.S. ambassador to Spain to $1.5 billion, down from $1.8 billion a year earlier. That’s still $200 million more than we estimated Argyros at in 2006.
Argyros’ wealth is split between real estate and stocks. Neither did so well in the past 12 months.
In real estate, Argyros likely didn’t fare as bad as some others because of the nature of what he owns.
Arnel & Affiliates, the real estate developer and investment company that Argyros started in 1968, owns more than 5,200 apartments and some 2 million square feet of office, industrial and retail space in and around Orange County.
The value of those buildings undoubtedly has gone down, though not as much as land for homes or high-rise office buildings.
Argyros is said to be looking to capitalize on the tumult in the real estate and credit markets through opportunistic investments, according to confidants.
Arnel’s most prominent holdings include the 280,000-square-foot Metro Pointe shopping center in Costa Mesa and the 356,000-square-foot Puente Hills Business Center in City of Industry.
The company and Irvine-based partner Hopkins Real Estate Group recently opened the 215,000-square-foot Imperial Plaza shopping center in La Habra. The project is valued at $45 million.
Argyros’ key stocks didn’t fare much better than real estate in the past 12 months.
He’s the largest individual investor in Kansas City, Mo.-based software company DST Systems Inc., where he saw the value of his shares fall by about 20% in the past
12 months.
Argyros owns close to 9 million shares of DST, which were worth about $500 million at last check. Last year his investment in DST was worth about $625 million.
DST is an early investment of Costa Mesa’s Westar Capital LLC, Argyros’ investment firm.
Argyros also is a shareholder in Santa Ana’s First American Corp. The title insurer and data services company, which counts Argyros as a director, saw its stock reach a five-year high a year ago, before getting battered by the housing downturn.
His holdings in First American check in at about $55 million, compared to $80 million a year earlier.
Argyros has lived up to his billing as one of OC’s wealthiest. In the 1980s, he owned the Seattle Mariners baseball team and airline AirCal Inc., the latter with William Lyon.
Born in Detroit and raised in Pasadena, Argyros graduated from Chapman University in 1959 with a major in business and economics. He also attended Michigan State University. He served as chairman of Chapman’s board of trustees from 1976 until his appointment as ambassador and is the school’s leading benefactor. He rejoined as a trustee upon his return from Spain.
,Mark Mueller
Igor Olenicoff weathered a tough commercial real estate market, not to mention a headline-making tax case, without taking too much of a hit to his estimated wealth in the past year.
We decreased our take on Olenicoff by $200 million this year, to $1.5 billion. That drop factors in generally declining values of office buildings, shopping centers and apartments seen across Orange County and the nation in the past year.
Despite the decline, Olenicoff still is $500 million more than the Business Journal estimated his wealth to be in 2006.
A consideration for Olenicoff is what sources say is relatively low debt for his Newport Beach-based Olen Properties Corp.
Unlike other real estate companies, Olen has no pressing need to re-finance or sell holdings, according to a source familiar with the com-pany.
Olen has more than 6 million square feet of commercial real estate, much in OC. The privately-held company counts close to 2,000 tenants and 380 buildings locally.
Olenicoff paid about $135 million in early 2005 for a pair of 13-story office towers on Irvine’s Main Street. It was the company’s first big local high-rise office buy.
He also has buildings in Brea, site of the company’s most recent local development, the 884,000-square-foot Olen Pointe Brea.
Olenicoff’s trophy is Chicago’s One South Dearborn tower. The 40-story skyscraper was purchased in 2006 for a reported $362 million.
He also owns more than 11,000 apartments in California, Nevada and Florida, which likely are worth close to $2 billion before debt.
Apartments have held up better than housing developments, one reason our valuation for Olenicoff hasn’t dropped too drastically.
But he shares a little homebuilding pain: Olenicoff owns 1,400 acres of land in Temecula, Nevada, Arizona and Florida.
Olen is one of many area developers to back away from projects amid the declining housing and commercial markets.
In early 2008, the company withdrew plans to build close to 900 apartments, including a pair of eight-story towers, around John Wayne Airport.
Other sources of wealth for Olenicoff include stocks, loans he’s made and cash holdings, according to sources.
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.
Earlier this year, he settled a long-running tax dispute with federal authorities over the size of his holdings.
The government late last year charged Olenicoff with a felony count of willful filing of a false tax return for 2002. A settlement finalized in April has him paying $50 million in back taxes and penalties, along with probation.
The settlement of the case could end up boosting our future valuations of Olenicoff,who had downplayed his wealth and ownership of Olen in recent years for tax reasons.
Olenicoff is moving more than $300 million in previously undocumented overseas accounts to the U.S. as part of the settlement deal, according to a source.
,Mark Mueller
Bill Gross is the bond billionaire.
Our $1.3 billion estimate for Gross is based in part on the 2000 sale of bond fund manager Pacific Investment Management Co. to Germany’s Allianz SE for $4.7 billion. Gross reportedly received $400 million in the deal.
Other factors include baseball-like contracts Allianz made with Gross as well as bonuses and dividends he’s received before and after the sale.
Our estimate is unchanged from last year, presuming Gross’ wealth doesn’t fluctuate wildly from year to year.
Gross’ Total Return Fund, the largest bond fund, saw a better-than-average 8.7% return last year and has assets of $130 billion.
In all, Pimco manages some $830 billion with Gross overseeing all of the company’s funds under management as co-chief investment officer.
He’s navigating shifts in the bond market.
A nearly yearlong Treasury bond rally is fading. Gross has moved money from T-bills and corporate debt into government agency bonds. This year, he bought into the beaten down market for mortgage bonds, anticipating a bottoming. He also has said he believes the U.S. dollar will gain versus the euro in coming months.
He got his first taste of money management gambling, turning $200 into $10,000 in four months playing blackjack. He also ran a Kentucky Derby pool while at North Carolina’s Duke University.
After earning a business master’s from the University of California, Los Angeles, Gross became a securities analyst at Newport Beach-based Pacific Life Insurance Co.
In 1971, Gross cofounded Pimco within Pacific Life with $12 million under management. The bond fund manager set off on its own in 1994 as Pimco Advisors.
As part of Allianz, Gross has been called the highest paid executive in Orange County.
Allianz renewed his contract at Pimco a year ago for undisclosed terms. In 2000, Gross’ five-year contract with Allianz reportedly was worth $40 million a year for five years.
Last year, Pimco brought back Mohamed El-Erian to share the chief executive post with Bill Thompson and the chief investment officer post with Gross, presumably as part of a succession plan.
An avid stamp collector, Gross has spent an estimated $100 million on his hobby. He’s said to own every stamp produced in the U.S. from 1847 to 1869.
Last April, he auctioned off his Scandinavian stamps for a donation to Millennium Villages Project at the Earth Institute at Columbia University, which provides help to some of Africa’s poorest.
In 2007, he raised $9 million for Doctors Without Borders after selling stamps he bought for $2.5 million.
His other giving includes $23.5 million to Duke University for scholarships, $20 million to Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian for its women’s pavilion and $10 million to the University of California, Irvine, for stem cell research.
,Dan Beighley
Caroline Getty and sister Anne Catherine Getty Earhart are heiresses of oil tycoon J. Paul Getty who’ve made names for themselves supporting environmental and Democratic causes.
The sisters are two of the nation’s richest women and are among 16 grandchildren of the autocratic billionaire. We estimate their worth at $850 million each, based on conservative estimates of how their inheritances have done and money they’ve given away.
The sisters are private and keep low profiles.
Earhart, 55, lives in Corona del Mar. She heads Laguna Beach’s Marisla Foundation, formerly known as the Homeland Foundation of Laguna Beach, which unsuccessfully fought the San Joaquin Hills (73) Toll Road in 1990s.
In 2006, Earhart gave $550,000 to support a successful clean water bond measure and to oppose an initiative that would have restricted teen abortions, which didn’t pass.
She’s contributed to Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Joe Biden.
Getty, 50, also is an environmental activist. She gave $1 million to the Nature Conservancy in support of two California parks bonds earlier this decade.
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 Organization.
The sisters’ wealth comes from J. Paul Getty, who struck oil in 1953 and founded Getty Oil Co. in 1956. He started the original Getty Museum art collection and endowed the J. Paul Getty Trust, which funds the Los Angeles museum. He died in 1976.
After a nine-year battle over Getty’s will, a 1985 settlement gave Earhart, Caroline Getty and one other 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.
,Sherri Cruz
The ongoing home-building downturn led us to lower our estimate for William Lyon to $800 million.
That’s a $175 million drop from a year earlier, and a $200 million decline from our 2006 estimate.
We came up with our estimate by looking at the stocks of several publicly traded homebuilders. Standard Pacific Corp. of Irvine has seen its stock drop nearly 80% in the past two years and by 65% in the past year alone. Larger builders such as Miami-based Lennar Corp. have seen their stock fall by two-thirds in the past year.
Newport Beach-based homebuilder William Lyon Homes Inc. is a big source of Lyon’s wealth.
It has faced slow sales, particularly in its core market of California, since Lyon took his namesake company private in 2006, near the peak of the housing boom.
The general, as Lyon is known, bought out the rest of the company he didn’t already own for about $275 million. The deal valued William Lyon Homes at about $950 million at the time.
The company posted a 25% decline in 2007 sales from a year earlier, to $1.1 billion. The company had yearly sales of $1.7 billion during the market’s peak.
It lost nearly $350 million in 2007. The company wrote down the value of its holdings by about $230 million to account for declining land values.
2008 is expected to be slower than 2007.
Cushioning the downturn for Lyon are his nearly 10,000 apartments. With the apart-ments and other investments, Lyon still could be worth $1 billion. As with just about everyone on our list, our estimate for Lyon is conservative.
The 83-year-old commanded the Air Force Reserve before retiring in 1978. He flew 75 combat missions in Korea.
Lyon started building houses more than 50 years ago for military personnel and others moving to California. The recent troubles in the housing market aren’t the first he’s faced in a long career.
These days, Lyon is grooming 34-year-old son Bill H. Lyon to take over William Lyon Homes. In 2007, the younger Lyon was promoted to executive vice president.
Gen. Lyon is one of the nation’s premier collectors of classic cars. His collection is worth $300 million by some estimates.
Lyon also is one of the county’s biggest philanthropists and supporters of Republican candidates.
,Mark Mueller
Hot Pockets inventor Paul Merage forever will be known for his contribution to snack food culture.
His microwavable frozen dumplings stuffed with sandwich fillings have been gobbled up by kids and busy moms since the 1980s.
The savvy businessman hung up his apron in 2002 when he sold Hot Pockets’ parent, Colorado-based Chef America Inc., to Nestl & #233; SA for $2.6 billion.
We estimate Merage’s wealth at $750 million based on the sale, after factoring in co-owner and brother David Merage and any other ownership and debt. As with all our estimates, Merage could be worth more.
Merage is chairman of Newport Beach-based Falcon Investment Group LLC, which has stakes in Huntington Beach-based BJ’s Restaurants Inc., Oracle Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc.
Merage also is involved with Newport Beach’s Stoneridge Capital Partners, which invests in commercial real estate, and Silverpoint Investments, a private equity firm that invests in small to midsize businesses.
Like many of the wealthiest here, Merage serves on many boards, including the Orange County Performing Arts Center and the Pacific Symphony.
A good chunk of Merage’s time is spent giving back through the Merage Foundations.
He’s an advocate of education and immigrants.
“He’s a visionary philanthropist who cares about America and the world,” said Marshall Kaplan, friend and executive director of Merage’s foundations.
The foundations have handed out grants to a handful of community groups.
One of his foundations is American Dream, which seeks to help immigrants pursue education. The foundation awarded $20,000 stipends to 12 college students in June.
His Children First foundation recruits skilled retirees for jobs in early childhood development programs and funds educational programs through the Social Security donations of wealthy retirees.
An Iranian Jew, Merage’s U.S.-Israel Trade foundation promotes business between the countries. Each year it sends groups of 15 Israeli executives on 10-day trips to OC.
He’s also a major benefactor to the local Jewish community through the Merage Jewish Community Center of Orange County in Irvine.
Merage is best known locally for his $30 million donation in 2005 to the University of California, Irvine’s business school, which is named after him.
He came from Iran in the early 1960s. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s in business administration from the University of California, Berkeley.
He and his wife Lilly, who’s active in the Merage Foundations, have three grown children. Merage enjoys tennis and music, including classical and jazz. He’s also an art buff.
,Jessica Lee
The real estate slowdown took a bite out of the combined wealth of the Makarechians in the past year.
We’ve lowered our estimate for them to $600 million for this year’s list. That’s a $400 million drop from a year earlier, driven in part by the real estate downturn.
It’s also based on input from sources who said our 2007 figure may have been high and underestimated the level of outside ownership in their real estate.
Hadi Makarechian runs homebuilder and devel-oper Capital Pacific Holdings Inc. Son Paul Makarechian is the owner and chief executive of Makar Properties LLC, a Capital Pacific offshoot that owns and develops land, condominiums, hotels and mixed-use projects.
Makar’s most notable holding is the five-star St. Regis Resort, Monarch Beach in Dana Point.
The value of the Makarechians’ holdings likely run in the range of several billion dollars, including sites in California, Colorado, Florida and Texas.
Their stake, after debt and factoring in ownership by outside investors, is estimated in the hundreds of millions. Our estimate for the Makarechians takes into account the values of both companies.
Capital Pacific still has its biggest project in front of it, in Colorado. Banning Lewis Ranch, a 21,000-acre development, could hold 75,000 homes and 180,000 people in next five decades. Early work is starting on the project.
In OC, Makar is moving ahead slowly with its largest development yet, in Huntington Beach.
The 31-acre Pacific City calls for a 200-room W hotel, 191,000 square feet of shops, restaurants and offices and more than 500 condos. The hotel should begin construction next year.
In Dana Point, Makar is building luxury coastal homes, including Pointe Monarch at St. Regis.
Makar has been buying, too. It paid $42 million in 2006 for the Wyndham Orange County Hotel. Plans call for adding a condo tower to the property once the market turns around.
In 2007, Makar paid an estimated $160 million for the Hilton Anaheim, the largest hotel in the county. Another $50 million went into upgrades and renovations.
,Mark Mueller
Howard Ahmanson is rich with convictions.
The heir of the Home Savings & Loan fortune was named one of Time magazine’s most influential evangelicals in 2005 for his ability to wield his money.
His critics deem him a right-wing fanatic. Ahmanson more likely is a complex man with deep religious ideals. He’s feared by his critics because he has the money to influence,funding a number of religious groups, including charities and journalism projects for Christian colleges.
He’s spent $400,000 in support of California’s marriage protection consti-tutional amendment, a ballot initiative that would ban gay marriage.
Ahmanson is a board member of Seattle-based Discovery Institute, known for its advocacy of the anti-Charles Darwin intelligent design theory. He’s on the board of The Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank.
He’s also a humanitarian. Ahmanson funds Food for the Hungry International, which feeds the poor while teaching the Bible.
While Ahmanson surfaces with his giving, he’s intensely private. A rare glimpse of his life came in a detailed Orange County Register story in 2004.
Ahmanson lives in Newport Beach with his wife Roberta, former religion writer for the Orange County Register. He suffers from Tourette’s syndrome, a neurological disorder that results in involuntary body movements and repetitive, compulsive thoughts.
His father, Howard Fieldstead Ahmanson Sr., got his start foreclosing on properties during the Depression. He bought Home Savings in 1947 for $162,000.
By 1968, the thrift had assets of $2.5 billion. The elder Ahmanson spent much of his later years as a philanthropist, creating the Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles and the Ahmanson Gallery at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
When Ahmanson died, his estate was split between the Ahmanson Foundation and then 18-year-old Howard Ahmanson Jr. Today, the foundation has assets of some $700 million.
We’ve based our estimate of Howard Ahmanson Jr.’s wealth on that and factored in money he’s given away.
Ahmanson probably is richer than we figure. He likely has investments that have appreciated in recent years. But we can’t tell.
,Sherri Cruz
Vincent “Vinny” Smith has seen his wealth rebound to where it was a year ago after slipping earlier in 2008 along with shares of Aliso Viejo-based Quest Software Inc.
The business software maker is a good part of Smith’s wealth. Its stock dropped earlier this year and then rebounded in May on solid first-quarter results and a strong 2008 outlook.
Gains have tempered some in recent weeks as investors worry about Corporate America’s appetite for software in a tough economy.
Smith owns about $500 million worth of Quest shares. Our estimate includes past stock sales and other investments he’s made.
Quest makes software that improves on or helps manage other business programs from Oracle Corp., Microsoft Corp. and others.
The company’s latest push is what’s known as virtualization,tech speak for the ability to “virtually” combine servers and other data storage computers into what appears to be a single source.
Smith is a low-key multimillionaire who goes by Vinny and often sports jeans and a cap.
Known as a savvy investor, Smith has said he likes to dabble in various ventures, including real estate and restaurants.
He 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.
Smith’s interest in Quest grew through an investment his Insight Capital Partners made in 1995. He took a seat on the Quest’s board and gradually became more involved, becoming chief executive in 1997 and chairman a year later.
Smith’s wealth could be impacted in coming years by an ongoing divorce case that was filed in late 2005 but doesn’t appear to be settled yet, according to family court records.
Smith supports several charitable causes, including Miocean Foundation, Augie’s Quest for Lou Gehrig’s disease, Orange County Register’s Season of Caring and various kids programs.
,Sarah Tolkoff
Victor and Janie Tsao, founders of home networking gear maker Linksys LLC, now Cisco-Linksys LLC, are plugging away in China for parent company Cisco Systems Inc.
Linksys, which was started out of their garage in Irvine, marked its 20th anniversary this year.
The Tsaos stepped down from running Linksys in 2006, three years after Cisco bought it for $500 million.
“Victor and Janie are very astute business people and they realized that the time for a change was here,” said Michael Pocock, a Cisco vice president and general manager of Linksys.
Our estimate for the Tsaos is based on the sale to Cisco and other investments they’re said to have made since then. The husband and wife team is believed to have diversified out of most Cisco shares.
The Tsaos stay in tune with goings on at Linksys while working for Cisco in China, a gig that’s allowed them to tap their connections there.
The two are from a rural area of northern China and met at Tamkang University in Taiwan.
They spend about half their time in China, going back and forth among apartments in Beijing, Shanghai and their Newport Coast home. Summers usually are spent here.
“The primary objective they have from Cisco was to continue to look for new technologies and new opportunities in China,” Pocock said.
Cisco has made a big commitment to China. In April, Chief Executive John Chambers said the company is set to spend $16 billion there in the next five years.
Janie Tsao is doing research for Cisco’s $350 million investment in small and midsize businesses and setting up some 300 “network technology academies” to get technology to rural schools in the middle and far western parts of China.
The Tsaos shy away from talk of their wealth. They lived in a modest house in Irvine’s Woodbridge for years as they grew Linksys. Only when Linksys began to take off did they splurge on a house in Newport Coast.
Pocock, who worked with the Tsaos during a three-month transition period and is a personal friend of Victor Tsao, said the two “haven’t changed one iota” since the buyout.
“They still fly coach,” he said.
,Sarah Tolkoff
Anthony Maglica is one of Orange County’s great entrepreneur engineers. The Anaheim Hills resident heads Ontario-based Mag Instrument Inc., maker of flashlights used by police officers and everyday folks alike.
This year alone, Maglica has logged a handful of additional patents related to flashlights.
“It’s fun doing it,” he said of the inventing process.
Maglica aggressively fights to protect his patents. He calls it a cost of staying in business. Mag’s products have spurred numerous imitations and hundreds of lawsuits.
Mag operates out of an 800,000-square-foot plant in Ontario and counts about 900 workers. Maglica said he has no plans to take the company public.
Selling isn’t an option either, though Maglica said he’s had offers.
Our estimate of Maglica is based on his ownership of Mag.
Two of his sons work at the company. They are likely candidates to take over.
Maglica was born in New York and grew up on the island of Zlarin in Croatia. The Great Depression pushed his family to move back to their homeland. When World War II devastated Croatia, he returned to America and settled in Ontario in the 1950s.
Early on, he worked as a machinist and saved $125 to buy a lathe and start his own machine tool business. Maglica made parts for aerospace and defense contractors, earning a reputation for quality.
He started Mag in 1975. The company’s trademark flashlight was introduced in 1979.
In the 1970s, Maglica met former longtime girlfriend Claire Halasz. In the 1990s, Maglica and Halasz went through a high-profile palimony case.
,Michael Lyster
Real estate developer and investor Peter Cooper debuts on our list after years on our collection of other centimillionaires (see page 38). That makes him something of a dual-citizenship rich lister.
He’s also on the rich list of New Zealand’s National Business Review, whose estimate is the basis of our $450 million listing for Cooper, as well as input from sources.
A Kiwi, Cooper splits his time between Newport Beach and New Zealand, where he’s developing homes and redeveloping Auckland’s waterfront.
His Newport Beach-based Cooper and Co. develops, manages and owns real estate in the U.S. and New Zealand. He also invests in companies.
In the 1990s, Cooper and partner Brian Stebbins sold a handful of U.S. shopping centers for about $180 million and went on to develop a 90-store mall near Dallas.
His largest project now is a $275 million redevelopment of the rundown waterfront of Auckland’s Britomart precinct. Plans call for restoring 17 historic buildings and building others. It’s called the largest restoration project in New Zealand.
Cooper also is undertaking something of a labor of love in his homeland. He’s building a 16,000-square-foot home on 4 acres on the northern coast of New Zealand. It’s expected to cost $15 million by the time it’s done in 2010.
The home is one of 44 set to make up Cooper’s Mountain Landing development.
The land is historically significant. Cooper, who is part Maori, has registered more than 40 sites with the New Zealand Archaeological Association and the New Zealand Historic Places Trust, according to the New Zealand Herald.
The son of a truck driver, Cooper studied law in Auckland. He began his career as a real estate lawyer with Russell McVeagh, one of New Zealand’s big three law firms.
He went on to work for Australian beer brewer Lion Nathan Ltd.
Cooper came to the U.S. in 1989 with his wife and five children. He’s a director at Georgetown University.
“If you’re truly passionate about what you do, you’ll find happiness,” he told graduates in 2007 as keynote speaker.
,Michael Lyster
Duane Roberts’ empire includes a landmark hotel, British food companies and apartments.
He works out of his Newport Beach-based Entrepreneurial Corporate Group and frequents his native Riverside, where his Mission Inn Hotel & Spa is.
The hotel, which he saved from demolition 16 years ago, has been the site of many Republican fundraisers. Roberts held one there in June for John McCain.
Last year, he opened Las Campanas Mexican Cuisine & Cantina, a lavish restaurant in Rancho Cucamonga that serves filet mignon tacos. It’s based on a restaurant at the Mission Inn.
We’ve pegged our estimate of Roberts largely on his ownership of 14,000 apartments in the Southwest. We also factored in the Mission Inn and the British food makers he owns.
He lives in Laguna Beach but will tell you his heart is in Riverside where he grew up. In 1950, dad Harry Roberts started Butcher Boy Food Products Inc., a meat company that was the main supplier of patties to McDonald’s and other fast food chains.
Roberts dropped out of college to help his dad. While working at Butcher Boy, Roberts, then 19, came up with what is billed as the first frozen burrito.
At 27, Roberts became president and built Butcher Boy to six plants and 1,400 workers.
By the time the family sold the business to Central Soya Inc. in 1980, Butcher Boy had an estimated $85 million in yearly sales. The company later became part of Tyson Foods Inc. before being sold to a private equity group.
He went on to sell another burrito company, Fernando’s Foods, to ConAgra Foods Inc. in the late 1990s for about $35 million in ConAgra stock.
Roberts took his Mexican food fortune and branched out into real estate, as well as banking and other investments.
He’s spread his wealth. Roberts just opened a 17,000-square-foot Riverside Humane Society pet adoption center and has given “seven figures” to Pepperdine University, where his stepdaughter attends.
,Sherri Cruz
Mike Harrah is big in downtown Santa Ana.
Like other real estate executives on our list, our $425 million estimate for Harrah is down from a year earlier, when we had him at $500 million.
Our estimate is based on lower values for offices and other commercial real estate.
Harrah owns close to 4 million square feet of commercial space in downtown and around the Civic Center. His holdings include nearly 50 office buildings, stores, restaurants and a concert hall, The OC Pavilion, which Harrah designed and built himself.
We value Harrah on his real estate in Santa Ana and Hawaii as well as on his Caribou Industries Inc., a development, construction and property management company.
We’ve also considered land and approvals for his proposed One Broadway Plaza office tower, though not the potential value of a finished building, which has yet to begin construction.
One Broadway is planned as Orange County’s tallest office tower, though it’s been in a holding pattern since voters approved it in 2005.
Harrah still doesn’t have city-required preleases to start major construction.
He’s seen more activity in Hawaii. He’s finishing work on Pinnacle Honolulu, a 36-story condominium tower that’s nearly sold out. Harrah also owns a Honolulu hotel.
Other assets include jets, helicopters and a collection of rare automobiles.
Harrah stands out at 6 feet, 6 inches tall, 280 pounds and with a ZZ Top beard. He’s piloted his Cobra helicopter for stunts in “Austin Powers: Gold Member,” “The Hulk” and “The Siege.”
Harrah is the designer, builder and contractor for the campus of the Orange County High School of the Arts, where he has given more than $2 million. He also supports the Boys & Girls Club, D.A.R.E. and was awarded the top honor of Making a Difference by the Child Abuse Prevention Center of Orange County last year.
,Mark Mueller
A $425 million inheritance from Irvine’s In-N-Out Burgers Inc.? Now that’s a lot of burgers.
At 26, Lynsi Martinez is the youngest person to make our list of Orange County’s wealthiest.
She trumps No. 14 Paul Makarechian, who’s in his mid-30s and is part of an entry with father Hadi Makarechian.
Martinez sits atop one of the largest privately-owned restaurant chains in America with an estimated $410 million in yearly sales.
We’ve based our estimate on Martinez’s staggered inheritance of trusts in the next nine years. She already owns a third of the trusts covering In-N-Out. Her stake goes up to half in four years and 100% five years later.
We’ve assigned the value of the trusts to Martinez, presuming she could sell the rights to her inheritance or gain financing based on the wealth that’s coming to her.
She inherits a company with an almost cult-like following that likely would fetch a premium if it ever were sold.
Martinez is the granddaughter of Harry and Esther Snyder, who founded In-N-Out in 1948 with a restaurant in Baldwin Park.
Her uncle, Rich Snyder, ran the company as president after Harry Snyder died in 1976 at age 86. Rich Synder died in a 1993 plane crash.
Martinez’s father, Guy Snyder, then took over.
He died in 1999 of a prescription drug overdose, prompting Esther Snyder to become president.
Esther Snyder died at 86 in 2006, leaving Martinez as the major heiress to the family trusts.
The company had a boardroom brawl in 2005 that drew plenty of headlines.
Former executive Richard Boyd sued alleging Martinez was trying to speed her ascension by ousting him.
In-N-Out countersued Boyd for alleged embezzlement and fraud. The sides settled for undisclosed terms.
Upon Esther Synder’s death, the presidency was passed to Mark Taylor, who has ties to the family and had served as vice president of operations.
Today, Taylor and Martinez run In-N-Out.
Martinez is media shy. She and the company declined comment for this story.
She’s involved with the In-N-Out Foundation, which raises money for underprivileged children.
Martinez is married and has two children.
,Jessica Lee
Fletcher Jones’ group of 15 auto dealers includes the top Mercedes-Benz dealer and the second largest dealer of any kind in the nation,Fletcher Jones Motorcars in Newport Beach.
Even in a tough year for auto sales, Jones’ auto empire ranks him among Orange County’s wealthiest.
The group has annual sales of about $1.6 billion, with the Newport Beach dealership accounting for $570 million.
Our estimate is based on a valuation of Fletcher Jones Management after subtracting a portion for debt and any other owners.
Jones, whose father started in the auto business in 1946, also sells Lexus, Mercedes, Porsche, Toyota and other brands at dealerships in Hawaii, Illinois, Nevada and California.
His most expansive dealership is the 225,000-square-foot Fletcher Jones Imports, a Las Vegas Mercedes dealer modeled after the one in Newport Beach.
The company is based in Las Vegas. Jones lives in Newport Beach and has an office at Fletcher Jones Motorcars, where general manager Garth Blumenthal oversees day-to-day business.
Rivals say Jones has cornered the luxury auto market through customer service and amenities that cater to the well-heeled.
Jones is expanding, opening a dealership in Temecula with Blumenthal as a partner. The dealership, expected to open in 2009, recently received the green light from the city. Jones plans to open about five more dealerships in the next three years, including one in Ontario and another in Nevada.
His dealerships contribute to charities through sponsorships and golf tournaments.
,Sherri Cruz
Fariborz Maseeh made his fortune selling a company at the peak of the technology boom.
He’s cofounder and former chief executive of IntelliSense Corp., a Massachusetts maker of software for what’s known as microelectromechanical systems, or microscopic machines run on a chip.
Maseeh ran the company from 1991 until he sold it to Corning Inc. for about $750 million in two transactions in 1999 and 2000.
Our estimate of Maseeh is based on the sale and presumes he got out of at least part of his Corning shares before the stock crashed in 2001. He could be worth more.
Maseeh runs his own investment firm, Picoco LLC, in Newport Beach. A spokesman declined to give specifics about the company’s investments and assets.
An Iranian immigrant, Maseeh gives via the Massiah Foundation. In 2005, he gave $2 million to start the Dr. Samuel M. Jordan Center for Persian Studies and Culture at University of California, Irvine.
He’s also given to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and alma mater Portland State University, where the engineering school is named for him.
In 2004, Maseeh funded a prayer and meditation room at Children Hospital of Orange County.
Maseeh is a member of the Samueli School of Engineering advisory board at UC Irvine and serves on similar boards at Portland State and the University of Southern California. He also is a member of the UCI board of trustees.
In May, Maseeh gave a graduation speech at USC’s Viterbi School of Engineering.
“When we sold (IntelliSense), we made 16 individuals instant millionaires and many others wealthy,” he said. “The happiest memory of mine was when I left my former colleagues with a smile on their face.”
Maseeh grew up in Tehran and came to the U.S. at age 18 not knowing any English.
,Sarah Tolkoff
Jim Downey’s payout came when he sold C & D; Aerospace during a wave of aerospace consolidation.
He was the major owner when the Huntington Beach-based company sold for $600 million to France’s Zodiac SA in 2005.
Our estimate of Downey is based on the sale after factoring in other owners and debt.
He’s cofounder of the company, which now goes by C & D; Zodiac Inc. and makes commercial and military aircraft cabin fixtures, including overhead bins cabin lighting and reinforced cockpit doors.
Childhood friend Toby Crowley and Downey started C & D; in 1972.
Downey now runs Aliso Viejo asset management firm Wave Equity Partners LLC.
He has given more than $7.5 million to charity since the C & D; sale.
His Downey-Short Foundation supports patients undergoing cancer treatment. The James E. Downey Foundation gives scholarships to more than 100 college students in Orange County, Illinois and Brazil.
Downey also has pledged $11.5 million to be given out through 2010 to other charitable causes.
,Dan Beighley
Ron Simon earned his fortune making kitchen cabinets.
Our estimate for Simon is unchanged from a year earlier, despite a slowdown for cabinet makers after last year’s housing crash. That’s because our valuation is conservative and still could be low.
Newport Beach-based RSI Holding Corp. sells to homebuilders and at home improvement stores. It has annual revenue of more than $700 million.
The weakened housing market is a chance to gain market share, according to Simon. Rivals that produce in Asia are struggling with high transportation costs and longer delivery times, he said.
RSI has about 6,000 workers in California, North Carolina, Kansas and Mexico, including 600 workers in Anaheim at a 674,000-square-foot plant.
Simon was born in East Los Angeles to a Russian mother and English father.
After studying engineering at Los Angeles City College, Simon wanted to start his own business. Instead, his father convinced him to join his medicine cabinet business, Perma-Bilt.
Simon eventually took over and grew it to be the largest maker of medicine cabinets, vanities and marble countertops.
In 1987, he sold it to an Australian company at 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 compete that was rejected by the new owners. So he took the plan and founded RSI. A few years later Perma-Bilt was out of business.
Philanthropy is big for Simon. His Ronald Simon Family Foundation has awarded more than 250 scholarships valued at about $7 million. His Simon Scholars Program focuses on students who’ve faced hardships and offers training, computers, tutoring and college application help. Simon hopes to grow to 1,000 scholarships awarded nationally each year.
Simon also supports the arts, healthcare and other causes.
,Dan Beighley
Joan Irvine Smith, the great-granddaughter of Irvine Ranch founder James Irvine, spreads her fortune among environmental, philanthropic and political causes.
Smith, an ardent Democrat, has given to Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Ted Kennedy and Loretta Sanchez.
An early University of California, Irvine, cham-pion, Smith last year gave $1 million to the univer-sity’s law school, which is set to open in fall 2009.
Smith played a role in The Irvine Company’s donation of 1,000 acres that eventually became UC Irvine.
We estimate Smith’s wealth at $300 million, based on input from sources.
Her wealth comes from her great-grandfather, who struck it rich during the Gold Rush of 1849. James Irvine and three partners bought 120,000 acres of land, which was about a quarter of Orange County at that time.
James Irvine II, Smith’s grandfather, incorporated the land as Irvine Land Co. in the 1890s.
In 1991, Donald Bren, chairman and owner of The Irvine Company, bought out Smith and mother Athalie Clarke for $256 million after a court battle.
Smith and Bren are cordial.
Besides the environment, Smith’s other passions include the arts and world-class jumping horses.
During the past year, she and business partner R.J. Brandes have been at odds over a venture to develop an equestrian operation.
Smith sued Brandes last August, alleging she is owed $6 million.
Brandes filed a suit of his own charging Smith isn’t as rich, business savvy or connected in the horse world as she leads people to believe.
,Vita Reed
Michael Wilson’s claim to fame,and wealth,is that he was the brains behind eBay Inc.
In 1997, Wilson joined the company and was charged with creating the technology for online auctions.
He served as vice president of product development and site operations and made millions in eBay’s 1998 $63 million initial public offering and ensuing stock rise.
Wilson “retired” from eBay in 2001 as chief scientist.
He moved to Laguna Beach where in 2005 he launched Makena Technologies Inc., which runs virtual online community There.com.
Wilson was a longtime investor in There.com and bought the operation to keep it alive.
At Makena, which has its on-the-books headquarters in Silicon Valley, Wilson is a director and heads engineering and community efforts.
Our estimated worth of $275 million for Wilson comes from his early eBay shares and his stake in Makena.
He left college for a tech job at Macy’s Inc., where he developed cash register and credit card authorization systems.
He also worked at Chevron Corp. and was an early employee at Oracle Corp.
In the mid-1990s, Wilson was hired as an engineer at eShop, a software company that was bought by Microsoft Corp. in 1996.
At eShop, Wilson met eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, who was tinkering with the code that would make online auctions happen.
Wilson also runs the Maya Foundation, an education nonprofit.
A few years ago he set up a “virtual store” on There.com that sold virtual T-shirts and other gear to avatars for the Humane Society. A similar event in 2005 raised thousands for Hurricane Katrina relief.
Wilson also gives to the Tzec Maun Foundation, which provides students with telescopes.
,Sarah Tolkoff
Rick Aversano was one of many at his technology startup to become rich without ever selling a single product.
In 2000, he and other cofounders sold Boca Raton, Fla.-based Qtera Corp. to Nortel Networks Corp. for more than $3 billion.
The sale was based on the value of Qtera’s technology alone.
The startup found a way to boost the distance and speed of data flowing over fiber optic cables, which was key to Nortel’s networking gear.
Aversano was the head guy in brokering the Nortel deal. Before Qtera, he was at a handful of tech startups.
We have estimated Aversano at $250 million, based on his Qtera stake at the time of the sale. We presume he sold at least some of his Nortel stock before it crashed in 2001.
He’s now partly retired and is a philanthropist.
With his wife Wendy, Aversano has donated to Irvine’s Barclay Theater, the Surfrider Foundation, Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian and the Laguna Playhouse.
Earlier this year the Aversanos sold their Corona del Mar home for about $27 million. They now live in Laguna Beach, according to a source familiar with the couple.
At one point Aversano owned Corona del Mar’s Port Theater and later sold it to fellow OC’s wealthiest Fariborz Maseeh.
,Sarah Tolkoff
We’ve always known Henry Segerstrom,one of the county’s key developers and philanthropists,is wealthy. This year, we’ve done our best to try and quantify it.
Our $225 million estimate is based on his family company’s Costa Mesa office buildings and South Coast Plaza. We’ve tried to factor in debt and outside ownership.
We went further by trying to estimate ownership by other members of the extended Segerstrom family. We also gave thought to the millions Segerstrom has given away and his divorce from his first wife.
Segerstrom is the public face of C.J. Segerstrom & Sons LLC, the developer and real estate manager.
The business dates back to 1898. Grandfather C.J. Segerstrom was a Swedish immigrant farmer. The family grew lima beans before turning to development.
We conservatively estimate the net value of the Segerstrom family’s wealth at $650 million.
The largest portion of that is tied to South Coast Plaza.
Retail sources say the 2.8 million-square-foot shopping center could sell for close to $1.3 billion, or about $460 per square foot. Others peg the value higher, saying it could sell for $500 to $600 per square foot, or as much as $1.7 billion.
Upscale office buildings also are behind Segerstrom’s wealth. Plaza Tower, Center Tower and Park Tower total more than 900,000 square feet and likely could command sales prices close to $400 per square foot, if not higher.
The family also has land in Costa Mesa and other assets and investments.
About half of the family’s wealth is tied to Segerstrom’s cousin-in-law, Jeanette Segerstrom, the company’s former co-managing partner who died in 2001. It is believed Jeanette Segerstrom’s wealth was distributed to a number of descendants who are too dispersed for any one to qualify for our list.
,Mark Mueller
