| Hampton Style - June 27, 2008 |
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Ralph Lauren
The best dressed man on our billionaire's list also casts the biggest shadow in the Hamptons, with one store in Southampton and four East Hampton incarnations of the Ralph Lauren brand (five if you count daughter Dylan Lauren's candy shop). Within earshot of each other, the stores include the traditional Polo store, the children's store, Rugby and RRL. Last fall, Ralph celebrated his company's 40th anniversary in Central Park with an elaborate black-tie dinner and fashion show; the attending well-wishers included everyone from Mayor Bloomberg to Robert DeNiro to Sarah Jessica Parker. Ralph has good reason to celebrate: his expanding empire now stretches around the globe with 313 stores (80 Ralph Lauren, 65 Club Monaco, 10 Rugby, 158 Polo Factory) and if you were to throw in his international licensing partners, the number grows by another 148 stores. Suddenly, the thought of five Ralph Lauren stores in East Hampton doesn't seem so far-fetched after all.
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IVY LEAGUERS
Among our billionaires we count 14 Ivy Leaguers: Teddy Forstmann, Carl Icahn, Henry Kravis, Thomas Lee, Richard LeFrak, Ronald Perelman, Wilbur Ross, Steven Schwarzman, Nelson Peltz, Sandy Weill, Mort Zuckerman, Stephen Roth, Leonard Lauder and Ronald Lauder. Ironically, only the latter two also make it onto our next sidebar, the list of inheritors. That makes our other 12 Ivy Leaguers not only self-made, but also chaps motivated at a very early age.
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Herbert Allen Jr.
Southampton, 67 years old, net worth $2.0 billion. Money is inherited and growing, it comes from finance. Divorced with four children. The high school drop-out joined his family's Allen & Co. in 1962; he is the host of the company's famous annual media retreat in Sun Valley Idaho which counts among its guests Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, foreign heads of state and former US presidents.
Ronald Baron
East Hampton, 64 years old, net worth $1.5 billion. Money comes from: finance; self made. Married with two children, he left one semester before graduating from George Washington University Law School to pursue a career on Wall Street. He founded Baron Capital in 1982 and today manages $21 billion. He is the host of the annual investors' conference, which drew 3,500 mutual fund investors to Metropolitan Opera House in Manhattan last October.
John Catsimatedes
Southampton, 59 years old, net worth $2.1 billion. Money comes from: energy; self made. Married with two children; one divorce. He is a New York University drop-out and owned 10 Red Apple grocery stores by age 24, making $25 million a year in revenue. He put $5 million into Manhattan real estate in 1977. Five years later, the property was worth $100 million. He purchased United Refining Company stock for $7.5 million. He currently owns 372 gas stations and a Pennsylvania refinery.
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Stanley Drunkenmiller
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Glenn Dubin
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Teddy Forstmann
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Carl Icahn
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David Koch
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Barry Diller
Sag Harbor, 65 years old, net worth $1.5 billion. Money is self-made and comes from media and entertainment, IAC/InterActiveCorp.
Married, he spent three decades in Hollywood and now controls IAC/InterActiveCorp's 60 brands, which include Ask.com, CollegeHumor.com and Ticketmaster.
Stanley Druckenmiller
Southampton, 54 years old, net worth $3.5 billion Money is self-made and comes from: finance. Married with three children. He was a stock analyst for Pittsburgh National Bank and started Duquesne Capital Management 1981. In 1988 he became a money man for George Soros. He orchestrated his boss's billion-dollar raid on the British pound in 1992. He now runs No Margin Fund from Pittsburgh and Harlem Children's Zone, a nonprofit organization that provides educational services to 12,500 children and adults.
INHERITORS
While you can easily make the argument that each of the following men has done significant heavy lifting of their own to attain their current pile of loot, it is interesting to note which of our 35 billionaires had at least a little pile to start with: Richard LeFrak, Herbert Allen, David Koch, Leonard Lauder, Ronald Lauder and Stewart Rahr.
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Glenn Dubin
Southampton, 50 years old, net worth $1.3 billion. Money is self-made and comes from: finance.
Married with three children.
With Henry Swieca, he leads a hedge fund and private equity outfit Highbridge Capital. The pair founded Dubin & Swieca 1984, which was renamed Corbin Capital. They created Highbridge 8 years later. They manage $37 billion worth of assets. He is a founding board member of New York's poverty-fighting Robin Hood Foundation with Paul Tudor Jones.
Theodore Forstmann
Southampton, 68 years old, net worth $1.0 billion. He is single and his money is self made. The Yale graduate bought IMG in 2004 for $750 million. The company's clients include Maria Sharapova, Derek Jeter and Heidi Klum. He started the private equity firm Forstmann Little in 1978 and saw early success with Gulfstream Aerospace and General Instrument.
Carl Icahn
East Hampton, 71 years old, net worth $14.5 billion. Money is self-made and comes from: American Real Estate Partners; investments.
Married with two children; he has had one divorce. He went to Wall Street with $4,000 in poker winnings. He gained a reputation for buying into troubled companies, forcing management to improve, restructuring and buying back stock. He was once considered the world's most dangerous shareholder activist. He owns 90% stake in a publicly traded holding company that controls casinos, real estate and home fashion.
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George Soros
Last summer, while hosting a luncheon for 20 prominent financiers at his home in Southampton, George Soros made a grim prediction about the country's economic state. While the other diners agreed we were facing a gloomy financial forecast, the hedge-fund billionaire was one of only two people in attendance who foresaw the severity of America's coming recession. But finance isn't the only topic Soros concerns himself with when entertaining in Southampton: in July 2003 he invited political strategists, affluent donors, labor leaders, and Democratic activists to his beach house to devise a plan to defeat President Bush. By the meeting's end, Soros had pledged a combined $12.5 million in donations to two organizations dedicated to increasing the liberal voter turnout and highlighting the Bush Administration's transgressions. While a personal invitation is the traditional means for gaining access to the impressive Soros estate, as of August 2006, at least part of it began welcoming a very different kind of visitor. Ben and Linda Lambert helped redevelop Soros's staff quarters into six luxury condominiums, ranging in size from 1,700 to 2,700-square-feet and priced from $2.1 to $4.3 million. Located on Old Town Road, the 1914 Spanish Revival buildings are taking in fresh air and new money. What recession?
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Henry Kravis
Southampton, 63 years old, net worth $5.5 billion. Money is self-made and comes from: finance. Married with two children; two divorces. He teamed up with cousin George Roberts and fellow Bear Stearns colleague Jerome Kohlberg to form leveraged buyout firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts 1976. His first billion-dollar deal was with Wometco in 1984, though he is best known for the $25 billion RJR Nabisco buyout of 1989. In 31 years his firm has invested in 150 companies, with total transactions exceeding $280 billion.
David Koch
Southampton, 67 years old, net worth $17.0 billion. Money is inherited and comes from: oil/gas. Married with three children, he is the son of Fred C. Koch; he and his brothers inherited Koch Industries after their father's death and proceeded to buy out William and Frederick for $1.1 billion in 1983. His brother Charles lords over the country's largest privately held company, which handles chemicals, pipelines, ranching, commodities trading, lumber, paper and refining operations in Alaska, Texas and Minnesota. David ran as the vice presidential candidate on the Libertarian Party ticket in 1980.
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Henry Kravis |
Richard LeFrak |
John Paulson |
Nelson Peltz |
Ron Perelman |
Leonard Lauder
Bridgehampton, 74 years old, net worth $3.2 billion. Money is inherited and growing; comes from Estée Lauder. Married with two children, he is the son of beauty queen Estée Lauder. The company now umbrellas 27 brands, including Clinique, Aveda, Bobbi Brown and La Mer. He took the company public 1995. Longtime Wharton supporters partnered with a business school in February to design a personalized executive education program for Estée Lauder employees.
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