Skip to footer

Wal-Mart, Campbell Soup owners top 'America's Richest Families' list

Forbes released its 'America's Richest Families' list last week. The Waltons, the family behind Wal-Mart, were ranked as the richest family in the US, and the world, with a net worth of $152 billion. 

|
Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP/File
Americans for Prosperity Foundation Chairman David Koch speaks in Orlando, Fla. Koch's family was named the second richest family in the US, with Wal-Mart's Waltons ranked as No. 1, according to Forbes.

What do you get when you combine candy, cleaning products, and Campbell Soup? You get a list of the wealthiest families in the United States.

Forbes released its list of ‘America’s Richest Families’ last Tuesday, ranking 185 families with a combined fortune of at least $1 billion and an aggregated net worth of $1.2 trillion.

The Walton family, whose patriarch Sam Walton founded retail giant Wal-Mart, is the richest family in the US and the world. The Waltons are worth $152 billion, more than $60 billion more than the second-richest family, the Koch family. Other notable families on the list include The Kennedys and Rockefellers.

The 185 families made their wealth in various industries, but the food and beverage industry was the most represented with 15 families. This includes the Mars family at $60 billion; the Dorrance family, owners of Campbell Soup Co., at $12.8 billion, and the Tyson family, which ownsTyson Foods, at $2.8 billion. Media corporations were the second-most common sources of wealth, making the fortunes of the Hearst and Pulitzer families, among others. Many families also acquired wealth through ventures in fashion, retail, and energy.

Seven families’ wealth are also diversified. For example, the Koch family makes much of their wealth from Koch Industries, the second largest privately-owned US company. The company has subsidiaries involving manufacturing, trading, and investing. The Pohlad family initially became wealthy when Carl Pohlad founded Pohlad Companies, which now has a network of more than 30 companies in the banking, real estate, sports, and entertainment industries, according to Forbes.

Forbes calculated the families’ wealth by adding up their assets, such as stakes in public and private companies and real estate, as part of the list's methodology. It also took into account of estimated debt. Forbes did not factor in assets for families' charitable foundations. To make the cut, families needed a combined net worth of $1 billion.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Wal-Mart, Campbell Soup owners top 'America's Richest Families' list
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2014/0714/Wal-Mart-Campbell-Soup-owners-top-America-s-Richest-Families-list
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe