OC’s never had a full-time resident with an estimated wealth topping $20 billion. But if trends continue upward, the area could soon have two.
The latest edition of the closely watched Forbes 400, released last week, bumped up the valuation of several locals, including the two top names on our OC’s Wealthiest list from July, Donald Bren and Henry Samueli.
Forbes upped Bren, the Irvine Co. chairman, to $18.9B, from $18B a year ago. Our OC’s Wealthiest listing estimated his fortune at an all-time of $18.3B this summer.
Bren, 92, ranks No. 42 on the Forbes list of the 400 Richest People in America, and it also placed him in the top 33 on the list for his philanthropic contributions, as measured by the percentage of a person’s net worth they have given to charity throughout their life.
Broadcom (Nasdaq: AVGO) chairman Samueli, who turned 70 last month, saw his estimated fortune boosted by Forbes to $16.9B, up substantially from $10B a year ago. We pegged the Anaheim Ducks owner’s fortune at $17.6B this summer.
Palo Alto-based Broadcom’s shares are up 115% over the past year. Samueli counted a 1.9% stake in the $864B-valued chipmaking giant, which has substantial operations in Irvine, as of earlier this year. That stake is currently worth nearly $16.4B.
Some other local notables from the Forbes 400:
Olen Properties’ Igor Olenicoff stands at $8.3B; up from $6.9B a year ago. Our OC’s Wealthiest pegged the Newport Beach real estate exec’s fortune at $9.35B.
The duo behind Fountain Valley’s Kingston Technology, David Sun and John Tu were listed by Forbes at $13.9B and $14B, respectively. Those figures are well above our latest estimates of $9.45B for each.
Henry Nicholas, who co-founded the pre-Avago, Irvine-based iteration of Broadcom with Henry Samueli, was estimated at $14.1B by Forbes, substantially higher than our $8.4B estimate this summer. It’s unknown how much of a stake Nicholas retains in Broadcom, though it is believed to still be substantial.
The cutoff for the Forbes 400 was an estimated fortune of $3.3B; while we estimated the net worth of Anduril Industries’ Palmer Luckey at $5B this summer, he didn’t make the cut for the Forbes list.
It’s not for lack of trying for the 32-year-old and his $14B-valued defense upstart; see page 1 for more on Anduril’s and page 79 Luckey’s improved relationship with Facebook.
My Sept. 23 column (OCTA Sticker Shock) detailing the proposed $54.5M purchase of a Santa Ana high-rise office by the OC Transportation Authority received a heavy amount of reader responses.
The general consensus for the deal, in which OCTA plans to spend an additional $61M upgrading the office post-purchase: the agency is vastly overpaying.
“Such a waste of money,” said one local real estate developer.
Former OC State Sen. Dick Ackerman has called on the agency to reconsider its plan and to address concerns that the purchase plan was OK’d without any public hearings.
The deal “was made with little public input or transparency and is an example of wasteful spending that needs to be addressed,” Ackerman said in an Oct. 7 letter to OCTA chair Tam Nguyen.
