Chesco Woman Lands On Forbes 400; Among Richest Residents In The United States

A Chester County woman has landed on the Forbes 400, a listing of the wealthiest individuals in the United States.

Mary Alice Dorrance Malone, of Coatesville, is the largest shareholder of the Campbell Soup Company. She is worth $3.3 billion.

She was joined by five other Pennsylvania residents, all of whom are local to the Philadelphia area, including:

• Victoria Mars, of Newtown Square, heir and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Mars Inc. candy and pet food company. She is worth $6.3 billion.
• John Middleton, of Bryn Mawr, the majority owner (48 percent) of the Philadelphia Phillies, made his fortune selling his family-owned business to Philip Morris-parent company Altria for $2.9 billion. He is worth $3 billion.
• Michael Rubin, of Bryn Mawr, is the majority owner and CEO of Kynetic (the holding company for e-commerce retailers Fanatics, Rue La La and ShopRunner). He is worth $2.9 billion.
• Jeffrey Lurie, of Wynnewood, is the owner of the Philadelphia Eagles. He is worth $2 billion.

Not surprisingly, Bill Gates leads the pack as the richest American in 2017. (He's been number one for 24 consecutive years.)

Gates is followed closely by another Seattle-area billionaire, Jeff Bezos.

Forbes noted that the price of admission to the list jumped nearly 18 percent to $2 billion. There were 26 billionaires on the 2016 list who fell off, and 22 newcomers made the list for the first time. One of the notable names that fell of the list is Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank.

To come up with the rankings of the 400 richest Americans, Forbes journalists started with a list of about 600 people considered strong candidates. Forbes looked at public records, news stories and when possible interviewed the candidates in person or via phone. All types of assets were taken into account, and Forbes also factored in debt.

One of the notable losers on the list was President Donald Trump, Forbes says. According to Forbes, Trump’s fortune fell $600 million to $3.1 billion. Trump’s Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross fell off the list altogether when he filed disclosure forms showing he had a net worth of less than $1 billion.

According to Forbes, these are the 10 richest Americans in 2017:
Bill Gates, net worth $89 billion, Microsoft (1)
Jeff Bezos, net worth $81.5 billion, Amazon (2)
Warren Buffett, net worth $78 billion, Berkshire Hathaway (3)
Mark Zuckerberg, net worth $71 billion, Facebook (4)
Larry Ellison, net worth $59 billion, software (5)
Charles Koch, net worth $48.5 billion, diversified (6)
David Koch, net worth $48.5 billion, diversified (6)
Michael Bloomberg, net worth $46.8 billion, Bloomberg LP (8)
Larry Page, net worth $44.6 billion, Google (9)
Sergey Brin, net worth $43.4 billion, Google (10)
>>> Click here to see the full list.

With reporting from Kara Seymour

Image via Shutterstock