Texas Well Represented On Forbes 'Richest Americans' List With 20 Billionaires

AUSTIN, TX -- The first billion is the hardest. Well, we can assume, anyway.

Texas is well represented on Forbes' latest list of richest people in America. Used to be, it was quite an achievement to reach millionaire status, and it still is. But now, the world is replete with billionaires -- with a "b" --and the U.S. is no slouch in its representation.

Texas had 20 people listed among the nation's richest, and they're all billionaires.

But let's crunch the numbers to give you an idea of what true wealth looks like. Collectively, the top 20 U.S. billionaires are worth a collective $814 billion, with an average wealth of $41 billion apiece.

Stated another way: Do you remember that time you were at the coffee shop debating between getting your usual grande or going crazy and splurging on the venti? Well, that's not a problem for these people. It's not a consideration requiring long and hard thought for them.

Technology is, by far, the largest sector from which billionaires have emerged. But a breadth of industry sectors is represented: Fashion and retail; finance and investments; food and beverage; media and entertainment; gambling casinos; and diversified wealth acquired through stocks and other investments securities.

On Forbes annual compilation, Texas emerged as something of a hotbed for wealth in its own right. There are 20 such titans, led by a Walmart heir Fort Worth and the founder of Dell computers based in Round Rock just north of Austin -- both of them in the top 20 list overall, both billionaires.

Houston and Dallas have the most billionaires, with nine and eight, respectively. Austin counts two billionaires and Fort Worth has one.

A couple of entrants in the exclusive wealth club come from the sports world. Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys makes the list, ranked 94th and Mark Cuban, who owns the Dallas Mavericks NBA team (and a noted Donald Trump troll), ranks 204th on the overall list.

There's also a six-way tie for 94th place, which is interesting. But without further ado, here's the Texas sampling, with some biographical notes provided by Forbes:

• No. 13, Alice Walton, Fort Worth. Source of wealth: Walmart. Total: $35.4 billion.

The only daughter of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, she hasn't taken an active role in the family business. Instead, she's focused on collecting and curating art -- a passion culminating in the opening of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in the family's hometown of Bentonville, Ark. in 2011.

• No. 20, Michael Dell, Austin. Source of wealth: Dell Computers. Total: $20 billion.

A true self-made billionaire, Dell launched his personal computer company with $1,000 in his University of Texas dorm room in 1984, when he was just 19. He hasn't slowed down after all these years, helping to engineer a $60 billion merger between Dell Technologies and the computer storage giant EMC to speed up his company's presence in the cloud computing business. Consummated in September, the merger created the world's largest privately held tech firm.

• No. 49, Andrew Beal, Dallas. Source of wealth: Banks, real estate. Total: $8.9 billion

Forbes calls him "one of the shrewdest investors in the country," noting how the Texas banker bought two of the most expensive homes in Dallas real estate history within a few months' time this year. To be sure, these are not your run-of-the-mill homes. One is a 25-acre estate that was listed for $100 million and the other a 6-acre estate listed for $60 million. Forbes noted Beal did well during the Great Recession fueled by the mortgage meltdown, buying distressed real estate assets at a discount while banks got taxpayer bailouts that have since been repaid to the government.

• No. 69, Richard Kinder, Houston. Source of wealth: Pipelines. Total: $7 billion.

He made the list despite some negative market forces affecting his industry sector as chair of oil and gas pipeline giant Kinder Morgan. The company has been hit by depressed oil prices, and is weighed down with a high debt load as a result. But there was a recent cash flow: In July, Kinder Morgan sold a stake in a 7,600-mile natural-gas pipeline system to utility Southern Co. for $1.47 billion.

• No. 82, Robert Rowling, Dallas. Source of wealth: Investments. Total: $6 billion.

His Omni Hotels chain numbers 60 hotels and 21,000 rooms, and growing.

• No. 94, Dannine Avara, Houston. Source of wealth: Pipelines. Total: $5.2 billion.

One of four chldren of the late Dan Duncan -- energy industry titan who founded Enterprise Products Partners. The patriarch died in 2010 and his children inherited the business.

• No.94, Scott Duncan, Houston. Source of wealth: Pipelines. Total: $5.2 billion.

Another heir to the considerable fortune of Dan Duncan, who was the richest man in Houston before his death in 2010 at 77.

• No. 94, Milane Frantz, Houston. Source of wealth: Pipelines. Total: $5.2 billion.

Another heir of the late Dan Duncan.

• No. 94, Jerry Jones, Dallas. Source of wealth: Dallas Cowboys. Total: $5.2 billion.

A man who, love him or hate him, needs no introduction in Texas. The 73-year-old bought the team in 1989 for a mere $150 million. It's now worth $4.2 billion. Before his entry into the sports world (many still remember the less-than-gracious manner beloved former head coach Tom Landry was shown the door after Jones' purchase), he was an old-fashioned wildcatter and still dabbles in drilling for oil and minerals along with real estate development.

• No. 94, Trevor Rees-Jones, Dallas. Source of wealth: Oil & gas. Total: $5.2 billion.

He's amassed more wealth of late picking up depressed assets in a post-oil-boom Permian Basin. His past gig as a bankruptcy attorney likely served him well in familiarizing himself with depreciated assets, entering the oil business in 1984 later emerging as a pioneer in the controversial "fracking" method of extracting minerals from deep inside the earth.

• No. 94, Randa Williams, Houston. Source of wealth: Pipelines. Total: $5.2 billion.

A former attorney, she's chair of Enterprise Products Partners, the pipeline giant her father Dan Duncan (d. 2010) founded in 1968. Williams is the only one of her four siblings (see above) actively engaged in running the family business, which owns 49,000 miles of energy pipelines, along with natural gas processing plants and storage facilities. A Rice University alumna, she's also on her alma mater's board of trustees.

• No. 111, Ray Lee Hunt, Dallas. Source of wealth: Oil, real estate. Total: $4.8 billion.

He and son Hunter have been making business headlines lately for their goal of taking control of Oncor, the state's electricity distribution division of bankrupt Energy Future Holdings. They would turn Oncor into a real estaet investment trust if successful.

• No. 184, Jeffrey Hildebrand, Houston. Source of wealth: Oil. Total: $4.1 billion

This guy might shatter whatever preconceived notion you might have of the shrewd billionaire prototype. Forbes reports that, despite the oil bust, Hildebrand awarded each of his 1,400 employees at Hilcorp Energy a $100,000 bonus for their help in doubling the size of his company in a five-year span. That team effort has made the company the nation's largest privately held oil and gas company.

• No. 142, H. Ross Perot, Sr., Dallas. Source of wealth: Computer services, real estate. Total: $4 billion.

Perot's one of those Texas legends, both for his storied business career as for his past dabbling in politics. The son of a Texarkana cotton broker joined IBM before launching Electronic Data Systems in 1962 and later selling his company to GM for more than $1.5 billion. He famously ran for president in 1992 and 1996 in two very entertaining campaigns for the nation's highest executive office.

• No. 150, Kelcy Warren, Dallas: Source of wealth: Pipelines. Total: $3.8 billion.

Co-founder of pipeline company Energy Transfer Equity with fellow billionaire Ray C. Davis in 1995. Last year, Last year, industry rival Williams Cos. accepted a $32.6 billion takeover deal by Energy Transfer, only to see the purchaser spending months "trying to wriggle out of the purchase," as Forbes puts it. In June, a Delaware Court concluded Energy Transfer could terminate the deal, but Williams Cos. has appealed. The company's makeup yields another bit of controversy, especially in light of renewed interest on the national political stage about the virtue inherent to paying one's federal taxes: Energy Transfer Equity is organized as a Master Limited Partnership (MLP), enabling it to pay no federal income tax as long as it pays out most of its cash to shareholders, Forbes noted in its rich people compilation.

• No. 174, Dan Friedken, Houston. Source of wealth: Toyota dealerships. Total: $3.6 billion.

Owner of Gulf States Toyota, the $8.4 billion (estimated sales) car distributor built by his father. The company's wide swath of exclusive distribution rights in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Oklahoma hints at the business tactics that have yielded his accumulate wealth.

• No. 184, Robert McNair, Houston. Source of wealth: Energy, sports. Total: $3.5 billion.

As principal owner of the Houston Texans, McNair is credited with bringing football back to Houston. Since he founded the team, it's grown in value to $2.6 billion. His original fortune was derived from the 1999 sale of power generator Cogen Technologies to Enron for a cool $1.5 billion.

• No. 204, Mark Cuban, Dallas. Source of wealth: Online media. Total: $3.2 billion.

Here is a man of contradictions: Officially endorsing Hillary Clinton for president while maintaining a New York residence at the Trump International Hotel and Tower in New York. Known for his appearances on the show "Shark Tank" and as the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, his original fortune came after he and a fellow Indiana University graduate sold their video portal Broadcast.

• No. 214, John Paul DeJoria, Austin. Source of wealth: Hair products, tequila. Total: $3.1 billion.

DeJoria represents a genuine rags-to-riches story. He slept in his car after selling shampoo door-to-door during his salad years before teaming up with Paul Mitchell in 1980. That deal helped him turn the corner, big time, turning $700 into hair-care empire John Paul Mitchell Systems (which posts $1 billion in annual revenues). His business savvy led him to help create tequila distiller Patrón Spirits, something he began as a hobby. Today Patron sells about 2.4 million cases of premium tequila per year. We'll drink to that.

• No. 232, John Arnold, Houston. Source of wealth: Hedge funds. Total: $2.9 billion.

An exceedingly successful energy trader, Arnold has the dubious distinction of having helped the disgraced and defunct Enron Corp. some $750 million in the same year the company declared bankruptcy. Arnold parlayed the wealth he accumulated as an Enron trader to create his own hedge fund, Centaurus Advisors, while recruiting from the detritus of Enron to fill the employee ranks. In 2012, Arnold announced he was retiring at the ripe old age of 38.

>>> Read the full story at Forbes

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