Nine Georgia Billionaires Make 2017 Forbes List

Georgia has nine billionaires on the Forbes annual list of billionaires, which was released Monday, down from ten notables on the list a year ago. The Georgia residents are included in the 2017 list of billionaires, which features a record 2,043 people.

They own the Atlanta Falcons and Chick-Fil-A. They founded Home Depot, CNN and Spanx. Meet Georgia's billionaires club. (Get Patch's Daily Newsletter and Real Time News Alerts)

"It was a record year for the richest people on earth, as the number of billionaires jumped 13 percent to 2,043 from 1,810 last year, the first time ever that Forbes has pinned down more than 2,000 ten-figure-fortunes," according to Forbes. "Their total net worth rose by 18% to $7.67 trillion, also a record. The change in the number of billionaires — up 233 since the 2016 list — was the biggest in the 31 years that Forbes has been tracking billionaires globally."

Here's the breakdown, according to Forbes, ranked from highest to lowest placings on the global list:

• No. 105, Jim Kennedy, the chairman of Cox Enterprises, is Georgia's richest person, according to Forbes, with a net worth of $12.2 billion. He is the grandson of company founder James M. Cox. Cox Enterprises is a media company and its holdings include the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Kelley Blue Book.
• No. 441, Bernard Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot with a net worth of roughly $4 billion. Marcus and co-worker Arthur Blank (whom we'll hear about shortly) started their own hardware store after being fired from rival Handy Dan in 1978. Marcus is the chief benefactor behind the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta.
• No. 474, Bubba Cathy of Atlanta, has a net worth of $3.8 billion. Cathy is senior vice president of Chick-Fil-A. His father, Truett Cathy, who founded the fast-food chain near Atlanta in 1967, died in 2014.
• Tied with his brother at No. 494, Dan Cathy also made the list with a net worth of $3.8 billion. Chairman and CEO of Chick-Fil-A, Cathy has held to the company's deeply religious roots, closing all stores on Sundays. As Forbes notes, he made anti-same-sex marriage comments during debate on that issues that sparked national protests, but later apologized for dragging the company into politics and has since tried to steer clear of hot-button topics.
• No. 522, Gary Rollins, is CEO of Rollins Inc., the parent company of Orkin pest control. He has an estimated net worth of $3.6 billion.
• No. 522, Randall Rollins, chairman of the company, is tied with his brother, and also has a reported net worth of $3.6 billion.
• No. 581, Arthur Blank, is worth a reported $3.3 billion. He parlayed his Home Depot fortune into owning the Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta United FC, and the Major League Soccer team.
• No. 896, Ted Turner, has a net worth of $2.3 billion. The cable-television pioneer's Turner Broadcasting created CNN, TBS, TNT and other channels before he sold to Time-Warner. Now, Turner owns more than 2 million acres of land in seven states and the world's largest bison herd and, he continues to advocate for environmental causes.
• No. 1795, Sara Blakely of Atlanta, makes the list with a net worth of $1.1 billion. Blakely is the founder of Spanx, the slimming undergarments, and has a fortune built when, at age 29, she spent her life savings of $5,000 to try to make something that looked good under white slacks. She's also the only woman among Georgia's 10 billionaires, since Anne Cox Chambers, the matriarch of the Cox empire, has divided her wealth among her New York-residing children.

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