Trump, Others Lose Spots on ‘Richest’ List : Wealth: Many of the country’s moneyed see their net worth drop. Metromedia’s John Kluge is one notable exception.
Donald J. Trump is no longer among the wealthiest 400 Americans and may even have a net worth of zero.
So says Forbes magazine, which on Monday released its annual list of the super-rich, a list that makes it clear that the controversial developer and other 1980s high-flyers have crash-landed.
A notable exception was Metromedia founder John Kluge.
The rags-to-riches Kluge expanded his fortune by $400 million to a staggering $5.6 billion, enough to retain his crown as the richest of America’s rich.
He is now the world’s seventh-richest man, according to Forbes, with five Japanese and a Korean outdoing him.
But most of the top 400 saw their net worth dwindle.
Sixty-four Californians made this year’s list.
Overall, the magazine that basks in the business of the rich and famous counted five fewer billionaires this year--down to 66--and dropped 43 people right off its list. Six died, including the magazine’s own namesake Malcolm Forbes.
Fifty-three of the Forbes 400 list suffered declines in net worth ranging from $100 million to $880 million, the magazine said in its Oct. 22 edition, released Monday.
For the first time since Forbes began publishing the list in 1982, the minimum net worth required to join the elite ranking dropped, from $275 million in 1989 to $260 million this year.
“With the end of the great 1980s credit binge, capital values almost everywhere are being marked down. Just as homeowners feel less wealthy than a year ago, so do most of the nations’ rich,” the magazine said in its Oct. 22 issue.
“Trump is the most noteworthy loser,” it said. “Once a billionaire, Trump’s net worth may actually have dropped to zero.” Last year, Trump’s fortune was estimated at $1.7 billion. In addition to Trump, the “dropouts” include Merv Griffin, whose Resorts International, which owns the casino next door to Trump’s struggling Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, N.J., went bankrupt.
Other individuals whose net worth tumbled included Sumner Murray Redstone, owner of the entertainment giant Viacom International Inc., whose fortune dropped from $2.88 billion to $2 billion; publishing-entertainment baron Rupert Murdoch, whose fortune fell by $600 million to $1.1 billion; cable TV mogul Ted Turner, whose worth fell $460 million to $1.3 billion, and convicted Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc. junk bond pioneer Michael Milken, whose worth plunged by $570 million to $700 million, largely because of $600 million in criminal penalties and losses from Drexel’s collapse early this year.
Newspaper baron Ralph Ingersoll fell from grace as the value of his junk bonds crumbled, while Ken Pontikes dropped out of sight after his stock in computer marketer Comdisco took a plunge.
Nudging Kluge in the No. 2 spot was Warren E. Buffett, the idiosyncratic investor who bought his first shares at age 11 and built a fortune with Berkshire Hathaway.
Ronald O. Perelman, with an estimated net worth of at least $2.87 billion, was Forbes’ No. 3 billionaire. A cigar-smoking lover of leveraged buyouts, Perelman bagged Revlon Corp. five years ago, Coleman Co. last year and has also added two thrifts to his diverse empire.
Others among the richest of the 400 names: real estate-industrial magnate Henry L. Hillman, 71, worth $2.65 billion; Cox newspaper heiress siblings Anne Cox Chambers, 70, and Barbara Cox Anthony, 67, who are worth $2.6 billion each; Newhouse media heirs Samuel I. Newhouse Jr., 62, and Donald E. Newhouse, 61, worth $2.6 billion each, and brothers Jay A. Pritzker, 68, and Robert A. Pritzker, 64, owners of a business conglomerate that includes the Hyatt hotel chain, $2.5 billion each.
Also at $2.5 billion were Wal-Mart retailing king Sam M. Walton, 72, each of his four children, and William H. Gates III, founder of computer software giant Microsoft Corp.
Further down the list, there were smaller fortunes but big headline names.
The real estate empire of Harry Helmsley, whose wife Leona is appealing a four-year sentence on tax evasion charges, landed the aging hotel king the No. 32 spot.
Entrepreneurs charged with crimes and misdemeanors also crept into the top 400, most notably junk bond king Milken. Forbes said the fallen Drexel financier was still worth $700 million after paying out $600 million in fines on six felony counts in April.
Among new names on the list, the wealthiest was Fred A. Lennon, a highly secretive Ohio industrialist who made his $600 million fortune selling valves and pipe fittings. The least of the newcomers was Doris F. Fisher, co-founder with husband Donald of the Gap clothing chain, worth $265 million.
At the top of California’s list was John T. Walton of San Diego, with $2.5 billion, followed by Marvin Davis with $1.65 billion. Davis lives in Beverly Hills.
Among the other Californians on the list were: Donald Bren, worth $1.6 billion; David Packard, worth $1.4 billion; Stephen Davison Bechtel Jr., worth $1.4 billion; David Howard Murdock, worth $1.35 billion; Gordon Peter Getty, worth $1.3 billion; Kirk Kerkorian, worth $1.25 billion; Margaret Cargill, worth $1.1 billion, and Joan Kroc, worth $920 million.
The magazine said it based the figures on intensive research into inheritances, stock ownership and what it called conservative, common-sense estimates.
