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Minnesota's megamoola: Cargill heirs double fortune
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It's been a good year to be in the food, fuel and fertilizer businesses. Just ask the MacMillans.
According to Forbes magazine, Cargill heirs Whitney MacMillan and Cargill MacMillan Jr. saw their fortunes more than double in the past year, to a net worth of $4.4 billion each, from $1.7 billion a year ago. That makes them the richest Minnesotans and No. 236 among the world's billionaires, the magazine said this week.
The family owns about 90 percent of Minnetonka agribusiness giant Cargill Inc., according to Forbes. And Cargill, in turn, owns a majority stake in the Mosaic Co., the Plymouth fertilizer conglomerate whose shares have more than quadrupled in the past year. Cargill's profit for the quarter ended Nov. 30 was nearly $1 billion.
Forbes' richest Minnesotan last year, Best Buy Co. Inc. founder Richard Schulze (No. 296), is now eating the MacMillans' dust at $3.6 billion, down from $4 billion a year ago.
The rest of our billionaires are the usual suspects: Carl Pohlad (358, $3.1 billion); Glen Taylor (428, $2.7 billion); Barbara Carlson Gage and Marilyn Carlson Nelson (both 553, $2.2 billion); Stanley S. Hubbard (743, $1.6 billion); and Dwight Opperman (1,014, $1.1 billion).
The world's richest? Investment tycoon Warren Buffett: $62 billion.
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