Boats, yachts and mega-yachts that could pass for luxury hotels are prominent in this week’s OC’s Wealthiest edition, with related stories throughout our 124-page edition.
A few new sports cars also make an appearance, though the money’s in the older vehicles these days, as evidenced by the new No. 1 on this week’s Wealthy list, Carvana majority owner Ernest Garcia II, who counts a secondary home in the area. We estimate his fortune at $18.5 billion, besting Irvine Co.’s Donald Bren by half a billion dollars.
Online used auto car retailer Carvana’s stock (NYSE: CVNA) is up about 125% in the past year, not surprising for anyone trying to buy a vehicle these days. Irvine’s Kelley Blue Book reports that the average used car price is well over 25% higher than a year ago. New car prices are up about 7% year-over-year.
See the story on Mark Moshayedi about how the local tech and real estate entrepreneur is putting his knowledge of vintage and exclusive cars to good use in a new venture.
The wealthy like their boats and cars; a few also have their eyes on other forms of transportation.
Palmer Luckey, the youngest member on our listing with an estimated fortune around $2.5 billion, counts a submarine among his collection.
The Anduril Industries founder also has been looking to the stars, noting admiration of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos for his July 20 spaceflight via his Blue Origin aerospace business.
“People criticizing Bezos for spending some of his money on Blue Origin rather than problems on Earth” are misguided, Luckey said via Twitter last week. The critics are “just angry that Bezos won’t surrender his treasure to their preferred social program. He could save the world and it wouldn’t be enough.”
No word on whether Luckey is looking into his own flight, either on a Blue Origin ship or one by commercial spacecraft upstart Virgin Galactic (NYSE: SPCE), which has a Tustin executive office and whose CEO is former Disneyland exec Michael Colglazier.
Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson had his own space flight earlier this month. The company, which has had no revenue in the past 12 months, is valued around $8 billion.
One measure of OC’s draw for the super-wealthy: Greater Omaha Packing CEO Henry Davis, with a fortune estimated around $1.1 billion, is reportedly the third-wealthiest resident in the state of Nebraska (population: nearly 2 million).
Davis has a secondary home in Emerald Bay, where there are at least four others higher on our list who have residences. The exclusive community counts roughly 500 homes.
Nebraska’s richest man with a nearly $100 billion fortune, Warren Buffett, sold his Emerald Bay vacation home in 2018.
Another business exec with a home in Emerald Bay, Olen Properties’ Igor Olenicoff, had a very good year—see page 53 for more on the real estate exec’s growing fortune.
For those looking to get some real estate insight, and perhaps some stock tips: sign up to attend our 2021 Family-Owned Business Awards, taking place Aug. 26.
The keynote speakers for the Irvine Marriott event—our first in-person awards event since early 2020—are Olenicoff and Olen EVP and daughter Natalia Ostensen.
