Meet Georgia's Billionaires

ATLANTA, GA -- They own the Falcons and Chick-Fil-A. They founded Home Depot, CNN and Spanx.

There are 10 of them. Some you've almost surely heard of before, but others you probably haven't.

Meet Georgia's Billionaire Club.

Forbes magazine has released its 30th annual list of billionaires and 10 Georgians made the grade in 2016.

The richest people in Georgia are among 1,810 billionaires worldwide -- down from an all-time high of 1,826 last year.

The combined wealth of everyone on that list? $6.48 trillion, according to Forbes.

(Note: The figures Forbes used for its list are based on a snapshot taken on a single day in February, using stock prices and other values from that day. Many net worth figures are likely to to have changed somewhat since then.)

Here's a look at the Peach State folks on the list:

• Jim Kennedy, the chairman of Cox Enterprises, is Georgia's richest person, according to Forbes, with a net worth of $9.9 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. Kennedy came in at No. 108 on the Forbes list.
• Bubba Cathy, of Atlanta, came in at No. 495 (tie) on the list with a net worth of $3.4 billion. Cathy, 61, 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. 495, Dan Cathy also made the list. 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.
• Lots of Georgians are bunched up in the tie for spot No. 495. Home Depot co-founder Bernard Marcus also falls into this slot with a net worth of roughly $3.5 billion. The 86-year-old 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.
• And here's Arthur Blank. He made the ominous No. 666 on the Forbes list. Perhaps the most well-known member of Georgia's Billionaire Club, Blank parlayed his Home Depot fortune into owning the Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta United FC, the Major League Soccer team that will begin play next year. The 73 year old's net worth is $2.7 billion.
• Gary Rollins is CEO of Rollins Inc., the parent company of Orkin pest control. He's at No. 688 on the list with a net worth of $2.6 billion. He and brother Randall are locked in a court battle with their heirs over what's estimated to be $3 billion in assets.
• Randall Rollins, chairman of the company, is tied with his brother at the same spot. At age 83, he is said to still work six days a week.
• What's left to say about Georgia's Captain Outrageous? Ted Turner is at No. 810 on the list with a net worth of $2.2 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, at age 77, continues to advocate for environmental causes.
• Mohawk Industries CEO Jeffrey Lorberbaum lives just over the state line in Chattanooga, Tenn. But his company is headquartered in nearby Calhoun, Ga. He's at No. 1,067 on the list, with a net worth of $1.9 billion.
• Who says there's no money in slimming undergarments. At only 45, Atlanta's Sara Blakely makes the list -- coming in at No. 1,577 with a net worth of $1.19 billion. Blakely is the founder of Spanx, 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, now that Anne Cox Chambers, the matriarch of the Cox empire, has divided her wealth among her New York-residing children.

(Photo via Wikimedia Commons)