
Bill Gates and Pete Peterson
Bill Gates may have lost top seating on the Forbes billionaires list, but he leads Vanity Fair’s accounting of America’s 50 richest paydays.
The magazine ranked windfalls that came from big deals such as company sales, real estate transactions and stock cash-outs. Gates sold $2.5 billion in Microsoft stock last year.
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Second on the list was Pete Peterson, who walked away from the Blackstone IPO with $1.9 billion in cash.
Next was the Chandler family, which made $1.7 billion from Sam Zell’s purchase of the Tribune Company. The Chandlers had sold the Los Angeles Times and other Times Mirror properties to Tribune for stock.
Others with reason to throw payday parties in 2007:
- James Jannard, who sold his sunglasses company, Oakley, to Luxottica Group of Italy, for $1.3 billion
- Jerry Perenchio, who cleared $1.3 billion from the sale of Univision
- The Bancrofts, who took away $1.2 billion from Rupert Murdoch’s purchase of Dow Jones
A bonus entry on the Vanity Fair list: The aptly named pooch called “Trouble” (as in family), who inherited $12 million upon the death of her owner, Leona Helmsley.
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1 Comments
#1. seo 03.10.2008
Really? are you saying true?
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