Richest Real Estate Billionaires In 2016
Forbes Rank: No. 18
Net Worth: $28.7 billion
Citizenship: China
Wang Jianlin dove deeper into the realm of American entertainment in January 2016, announcing that his Dalian Wanda Group will spend $3.5 billion to buy U.S. film and TV production company Legendary Entertainment. In 2013, Dalian Wanda bought U.S. movie theater chain AMC Entertainment Holdings for $2.6 billion. Companies controlled by Wang have spanned the globe in recent years: In January 2015 Dalian Wanda bought 20% of Spanish soccer team Atletico Madrid and in August 2015 it purchased the organizer of Ironman Triathlons for
$650 million. Two of his companies went public in China in 2015: real estate firm Wanda Commercial Properties and Chinese movie theater chain Wanda Cinema Line. Dalian Wanda started as a commercial real estate developer, building shopping plazas and hotels.
Forbes Rank: 31
Net Worth: $21.5 billion
Citizenship: Hong Kong
Hong Kong's second-richest man grew up in a family that could afford to eat meat or fish only two times a month when he was young. "When I was young, business came first, then wealth, then health and finally family. Now, it's health first, then family, then my business and lastly wealth," he said in a recent biography. Lee today leads a business empire that spans real estate, hotels, energy and investments, led by flagship Henderson Land Development. He has donated more than $400 million for expanding Oxford University's campus facilities and establishing scholarship programs.
Forbes Rank: 51
Net worth: $18.1 billion
Citizenship: Germany
Crate and Barrel enjoys excellent name recognition in the U.S., but few shoppers at the furnishings and home accessories retailer know of its German parent, Otto Group, which bills itself as the second-largest Internet retailer worldwide (after Amazon.com). Founded by the late Werner Otto as a mail-order business in Hamburg, in 1949, the family company today is active in real estate and financial services as well as retail. Werner's son Michael, who heads the supervisory board, retired as chief executive in 2007 after 26 years in that position. Michael's brother Alexander manages the family's ECE Group, which develops and manages shopping centers (at last count, 196 were under management). It also develops and builds transport complexes, logistics centers, company headquarters, office complexes, industrial buildings and special-purpose properties.
Forbes Rank: 54
Net worth: $15.1 billion
Citizenship: U.S.A.
Donald Bren is the United States' richest real estate developer, with a diverse 110 million square-foot portfolio concentrated in Southern California. His Irvine Company owns and manages more than 500 office buildings, more than 40 shopping centers, 50,000 apartments, three hotels and several golf clubs and marinas. He's expanding further into Silicon Valley with a new 100-acre development in Santa Clara. Bren also owns a 97% stake in Manhattan's Met Life Building. The son of a real estate investor, Bren grew up working as a carpenter's helper on his father's buildings. He attended the University of Washington on a skiing scholarship and spent three years in the Marines. In 1977 he bought Irvine Company, which started as a ranching operation 150 years ago, with a group of investors, and now owns the entire privately held company.
Forbes Rank: 60
Net worth: $14.4 billion
Citizenship: United Kingdom
Real estate and metals baron brothers David and Simon Reuben recently made a slew of purchases in London's West End including spending $70 million on a 125-year lease for an office block and $100 million for a car park in Mayfair. The brothers also paid $800 million for the debt on New York City's famed Plaza Hotel and two other hotels. They are currently converting the former home of famed poet Lord Byron into an eight-bedroom house with swimming pool, sauna and staff quarters. They also have a data center business, GlobalSwitch. After growing up in the UK--David traded metals, Simon imported carpets and bought real estate--they joined together in Transworld, a metals trader that invested in Russia and Kazakhstan in the 1990s which reportedly controlled as much as 7% of the world's aluminum trade. They sold this business and focused on building a property portfolio.
Forbes Rank: 65
Net worth: $13.1 billion
Citizenship: Hong Kong
Joseph Lau owns three-quarters of Chinese Estates, one of Hong Kong's largest real estate investors. A higher share price for Chinese Estates and better information on his large personal portfolio of Hong Kong and London properties boosted his net worth by more than $2 billion from 2015 to 2016.
Meanwhile, the real estate tycoon faces possible extradition to Macau after being sentenced by the city to more than 5 years in prison for bribery and money laundering in 2014. His brother Thomas is also a billionaire.
Forbes Rank: 68
Net worth: $13 billion
Citizenship: United Kingdom
One of U.K.'s richest landowners and property developers, Gerald Grosvenor's holdings span swank shops in Mayfair, London, to a hunting ranch by Seville, Spain. Known formally as the 6th Duke of Westminster, the former Army general owns 190 acres in Belgravia, an area adjacent to Buckingham Palace and one of London's most expensive neighborhoods. His family also has 96,000 acres in Scotland, 32,000 acres in Spain and thousands elsewhere in England. Altogether, the private Grosvenor Group owns real estate on five continents and reports over $15 billion in assets under management.
Forbes Rank: 68
Net Worth: $13 billion
Citizenship: Hong Kong
With Thomas, 64, sentenced to 5 years in prison in 2014 for bribery and eldest brother, Walter striking off on his own, Raymond, 62, is now the sole chairman of Sun Hung Kai Properties. The Kwok brothers inherited the publicly traded company after the death of their father, Kwok Tak-seng, in 1990. Most of its investments are in Hong Kong, such as the International Commerce Centre, the city's tallest skyscraper, and the International Finance Centre. The property business is also expanding on the mainland.
Forbes Rank: 80
Net worth: $12 billion
Citizenship: U.S.A.
Stephen Ross, chairman of Related Companies, is the developer behind America's largest private real estate project. His $15 billion mega-development, Hudson Yards (a 28-acre neighborhood on Manhattan's West Side) broke ground in 2012 and could be completed by 2024. Meanwhile, people have started to move into Related-developed Hunter's Point South in Queens, the largest affordable housing complex built in New York City since the 1970s. One of his high profile buildings is One Central Park and The Residences at the Mandarin Oriental at the Time Warner Center, home to several billionaires and numerous tenants with alleged ties to financial fraud or organized crime, according to a 2015 New York Times investigation. Ross also owns the Miami Dolphins and is putting $400 million of his own money into renovating Dolphins Stadium. Ross and two partners own Equinox fitness centers; the group is majority shareholders in SoulCycle, which filed initial papers for its IPO in July 2015
Forbes Rank: 103
Net worth: $10 billion
Citizenship: Malaysia
Robert Kuok, Malaysia's richest person, exited the media business in December 2015 when he sold Hong Kong's South China Morning Post to Alibaba for $265 million. He had purchased a 35% stake in the now 112-year-old newspaper from Rupert Murdoch in 1993. The deal also included the Hong Kong editions of Esquire, Elle, Cosmopolitan, Harper's Bazaar and other titles. The Chinese-Malaysian tycoon's Kuok Group controls an empire that includes the high-end hotel chain Shangri-La, Kerry Properties and commodities trader Wilmar. He got his start trading rice, sugar and wheat flour in Malaysia in 1949 and in Singapore in 1953. A big source of his wealth is a stake in palm-oil-giant Wilmar International, which is run by nephew Kuok Khoon Hong, a Singapore billionaire.
Forbes Rank: 115
Net worth: $9.4 billion
Citizenship: U.S.A.
Andy Beal is a college dropout who made a tidy sum during the Great Recession buying distressed assets while the nation's biggest banks were getting taxpayer bailouts. Sensing weakness in credit markets leading up to the financial crisis, Beal virtually stopped making or buying loans from 2004 to 2007. When the financial sector blew up in 2008, he snatched beaten-down assets all over the country, including debt backed by a Houston refinery, a mortgage on an office building in Ohio and home loans from Alaska to Florida. Through his various Beal Banks in Texas and Nevada, Beal has built a team to lend to oil and gas producers; he believes the collapse in prices has opened new opportunities. In 2001 he gambled against the world's top poker players at the Bellagio in Las Vegas in one of the highest-stakes poker games ever. The mathematics enthusiast developed the Beal Conjecture, a complex mathematical problem, in 1993, and offered $1 million to anyone who could solve it. Mathematicians have been stumped for decades.
Forbes Rank: 129
Net worth: $8.6 billion
Citizenship: China
Hui Ka Yan is chairman of Hong Kong-listed real estate developer Evergrande Real Estate of Guangzhou, which is active in residential and commercial property and hotels. He sold a 50% stake in his popular soccer team Guangzhou Evergrande Football Club to billionaire Jack Ma's Alibaba Group for $192 million in 2014.
Forbes Rank: 135
Net worth: $8.4 billion
Citizenship: Israel
Eyal Ofer is the chairman of Ofer Global group, based in Monaco, as well as Zodiac Maritime, a privately-held London-based shipping corporation with a fleet of more than 150 vessels. Ofer is chairman of private real estate holding company Global Holdings, which owns the Altria Building and 15 Central Park West in New York City. He also has a stake in Mizrahi Tefahot bank in Israel. His other shipping interests include privately held OMNI Offshore Terminals and a stake in publicly traded Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, where he has been a director for more than 15 years. Eyal and his brother Idan are the sons of shipping magnate Sammy Ofer, who died in 2011 and was once Israel's richest man.
Forbes Rank: 148
Net worth: $7.7 billion
Citizenship: U.S.A.
Stan Kroenke is the man who's bringing the NFL back to Los Angeles. His plan to move the franchise to L.A. -- the team's home city for nearly five decades until moving to St. Louis in 1995 -- was approved by a majority of the NFL's other team owners in January 2016. The Rams may be the crown jewel, but they're just one part of Kroenke's sports empire, which also includes English soccer club Arsenal and a trio of Denver-based teams: the NBA's Denver Nuggets, the NHL's Colorado Avalanche and MLS' Colorado Rapids. Kroenke also has a real estate empire that spans more than 30 million square feet -- much of it shopping plazas near Wal-Mart stores throughout the U.S. (His wife, billionaire Ann Walton Kroenke, is a niece of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, and an heir to that fortune.) He's a major landowner, with ranches in Montana, Wyoming and Canada. In February 2016 he made a big move into Texas when he bought the Waggoner Ranch, which spans nearly 800 square miles near the Oklahoma border. Said to be bigger than New York City and Los Angeles combined, it features 30,000 acres of farmland and more than 1,000 productive oil wells. The ranch was listed for $725 million.
Forbes Rank: 151
Net worth: $7.6 billion
Citizenship: Singapore
Property siblings Robert and Philip Ng saw their wealth fall by $2 billion amid Singapore's weak real estate market. For the past three years, the brothers have been expanding their footprint in Australia, snatching trophy assets such as the Westin Sydney hotel and its adjoining heritage retail podium, which they acquired for $342 million last year. Their latest buy in January was a Scarborough beachfront mall in Perth for $45 million. In December they made news with a $23 million donation to fund programs between Singapore and Chinese universities. Older brother Robert chairs Hong Kong-listed Tsim Sha Tsui Properties while Philip heads Far East Organization, Singapore's largest private property developer. Robert's son Daryl is executive director at Sino Group, which was founded by their late father Ng Teng Fong who moved from China to Singapore in 1934.
Forbes Rank: No. 174
Net worth: $6.6 billion
Citizenship: Hong Kong
Peter Woo started his career with Chase Manhattan Bank in New York in 1972 after earning an MBA from Columbia University. He met his future wife, Bessie, daughter of shipping tycoon Y.K. Pao, in New York, and in 1975 he joined her family business in Hong Kong. Woo relinquished his chairman's role at Wharf in 2015 and became "chief adviser." Beyond property, Wharf and its listed holding company, Wheelock & Co., control important telecom, port and retailing assets, including the luxury department store chain Lane Crawford. Son Douglas, heir apparent, chairs Wheelock & Co..
Forbes Rank: 188
Net worth: $6.2 billion
Citizenship: Hong Kong
Since his ouster from the chairman's seat at Sun Hung Kai Properties, Walter Kwok has been busy starting over with his own business, Empire Group Holdings. Recent deals include buying $30 million in stock when Chinese conglomerate Legend Holdings went public and investing in China Jinmao, the developer controlled by Sinochem. He inherited Sun Hung Kai Properties with his two brothers, Thomas and Raymond.
Forbes Rank: 205
Net worth: $5.9 billion
Citizenship: Russia
Mikhail Gutseriev is the majority shareholder of BIN Group, a diversified conglomerate. His brother, Sait-Salam Gutseriev, and nephew, Mikail Shishkhanov -- also billionaires -- own the rest. In recent years, he's taken advantage of Russia's economic crisis to build up his portfolio. In 2015, he spent $1.5 billion acquiring banks, pension funds, oil fields, factories, real estate development companies, warehouses and a popular Russian radio station, Radio Shanson. Earlier, he'd bought Multinational Logistics Partnership from billionaire Victor Vekselberg and two five-star hotels in central Moscow from Bidzina Ivanishvili, the billionaire former prime minister of Georgia. He also bought Moscow's famous National Hotel from billionaire Elena Baturina, Russia's richest woman. Gutseriev owns the private oil giants Russneft and Neftisa. In late 2006 he was accused of violating terms of his oil license and failing to pay taxes. After denying the charges, he sold Russneft to billionaire Oleg Deripaska for $2.8 billion and moved to London. When the charges were dropped in 2010, Gutseriev returned to Russia and bought back Russneft. Gutseriev writes lyrics for songs performed by famous Russian singers
Forbes Rank: 205
Net worth: $5.9 billion
Citizenship: U.S.A.
Richard LeFrak and partner Turnberry Associates broke ground in June 2015 on a 183-acre site in North Miami to be called SoLeMia that will eventually have more than 4,000 residential units and some 1 million square feet of retail and commercial space. It's the latest project for LeFrak, who's been in his family's real estate business since 1968. His grandfather, Harry, began developing properties in 1901. Now LeFrak is one of the biggest landlords in the tristate area, known for his 5,000-unit apartment complex LeFrak City in Queens, N.Y. and over 16 million square feet of commercial, residential and retail properties in Newport, N.J.
Forbes Rank: 205
Net worth: $5.9 billion
Citizenship: Hong Kong
Pan Sutong gets the bulk of his fortune from his stake in Hong Kong-listed Goldin Financial Holdings, which has interests in real estate, finance and wine. Pan is building China's tallest building, Goldin Finance 117, the centerpiece of his multibillion-dollar development, Goldin Metropolitan, in Tianjin. His Goldin Group also includes consumer electronics brand Matsunichi, which makes karaoke TV monitors and MP3 players, tablets and modems. A wine connoisseur, he invests in vineyards in California's Napa Valley and France's Bordeaux region. Born in China, he moved to the U.S. at age 13 before relocating to Hong Kong at age 21.
Forbes Rank: Watch Out
Net Worth: GOD (Unlimited)
Citizenship: Nigerian
Morrison Wilson a Dynamic realtor, Developer and blogger. The Ceo of De-Huios Investment Ltd. 6years unbreakable record of integrity in Real Estate transactions across the globe. Building His Properties portfolio in Ibeju lekki precisely and within Nigeria gradually.
Sourced- Forbes
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