The past year has seen Kirk Kerkorian emerge as Southern California’s richest person.
The investor saw his wealth increase 15% to $9.3 billion during the past year, according to the Los Angeles Business Journal.
That makes Kerkorian Southern California’s wealthiest, just above The Irvine Company owner Donald Bren, whose wealth is pegged at $8.7 billion, according to the Orange County Business Journal.
But our estimate for Bren is conservative. He could be worth as much as $10 billion or more, based on his vast holdings of land, office buildings and other real estate.
The richest person in the region a year ago was Sumner Redstone, executive chairman of Viacom Inc. and chairman of CBS Corp. But Redstone’s wealth took an 11% hit during the past year to $7.4 billion. That dropped him to No. 2 on the L.A. Business Journal list.
Kerkorian has grabbed headlines during the past few years for his shareholder activism at General Motors Corp. The Beverly Hills resident raised his stake in the struggling automaker to nearly 10%.
Kerkorian’s Beverly Hills-based holding company, Tracinda Corp., owns more than half of Las Vegas casino MGM Mirage. The casino made a big acquisition this year, picking up the Mandalay Bay Resort group, which gives it control of more than half the hotel rooms on the Las Vegas Strip.
Redstone, who led a split of CBS and Viacom during the past year, has seen shares of both companies continue to struggle. He lives in Beverly Hills.
Several of L.A.’s richest have OC ties.
The wealthiest of them is Hungarian-born Steven Ferencz Udvar-Hazy, who sold his jet leasing company to American International Group in 1990 and counts a net worth of $3.4 billion. That puts him at No. 10 on L.A.’s list.
Udvar-Hazy, who’s on our list of the Weekend Wealthy with a Monarch Beach home, holds about $1.4 billion in AIG stock. The Beverly Hills resident had a good year thanks to a rebound in AIG shares.
Next up is John Shea and family, with wealth of $3 billion. The real estate family’s Shea Properties unit is based in Aliso Viejo. A slew of developments in California, Arizona and Colorado have made Shea Properties, the commercial arm of Walnut-based J.F. Shea Co., the parent company’s fastest-growing unit.
Peter Shea Jr., J.F. Shea’s chief executive, lives in Newport Beach.
A couple of people show up on both the OC and L.A. lists.
One, the U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands, notched L.A.’s No. 20 spot with a net worth of $1.8 billion. That’s Roland Arnall, founder and owner of Orange-based ACC Capital Holdings Corp., the parent of subprime lender Ameriquest Mortgage Co.
Arnall is No. 2 on the OC wealthy list since his wealth comes from here.
It was a mixed year for the Holmby Hills resident. While he made it through the ambassadorial confirmation process, his company agreed to pay $325 million to settle charges of unfair lending practices.
John Tu, cofounder with David Sun of Fountain Valley-based Kingston Technology Co., was No. 38 on L.A.’s list. Tu’s wealth was pegged at $980 million on L.A.’s list, up 23% from a year earlier.
We have Tu pegged at $850 million based on an evaluation of publicly traded rivals. He’s No. 12 on the OC list.
Kingston, a memory products maker, saw its sales grow by about 30% to $3 billion last year. Tu is president of Kingston. He commutes to the company from his home along the Los Angeles coast.
OC’s ties to San Diego’s richest loosened during the past year.
San Diego’s richest person, according to the San Diego Business Journal, is Ernest Rady with $3.2 billion. Rady, who notched the No. 2 spot on our list a year ago, is off this year after his ties to OC were cut.
Rady led the sale of Irvine-based lender Westcorp Inc. and affiliate WFS Financial Inc. to Wachovia Corp. for about $3.9 billion. Rady was chairman and chief executive of Westcorp and chairman of WFS Financial.
The La Jolla resident is principal owner of American Assets Real Estate Group. The San Diego-based company owns a handful of major office towers, 3.7 million square feet of retail space and more than 1,000 apartments in several complexes.
Ted Waitt is another linked to OC, though that tie weakens by the year.
Waitt, who lives in La Jolla, checked in at No. 6 on the San Diego Business Journal’s wealthiest list, with $1.6 billion.
The founder of Irvine-based Gateway Inc. stepped down as chairman last year, severing all management-related ties to the company.
But Waitt, who has been steadily unloading his stake in Gateway during the past few years, still controls shares worth about 20% of the struggling computer maker. His stake,through Waitt’s own holdings and trusts,is worth about $130 million at recent check.
Most of Waitt’s wealth is invested through his Avalon Capital Group.
It’s worth noting a couple of newcomers to our list: Rodney Sacks, chairman and chief executive of Hansen Natural Corp. and Hilton Schlosberg, vice chairman, chief operating officer, chief financial officer and president of the drinks maker.
Sacks is No. 23 on our list with an estimated worth of $325 million. Schlosberg is No. 24 at $300 million. They live in OC and commute to Corona, where Hansen is based. Their holdings surely make them among the Inland Empire’s richest people.
Staff reporters with the Los Angeles Business Journal and San Diego Business Journal contributed to this report.
