7 Maryland Billionaires On Forbes List Of Richest Americans

MARYLAND — Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos is at the top of yet another list of billionaires, this time the Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans. Seven Maryland moneymakers are on the list too.

The Forbes 400 list released Wednesday puts Bezos ahead of Bill Gates, who had been at the top since 1994.

Bezos dethroned Gates from the top of the Forbes billionaires list, released in March, as well.

According to Forbes, the minimum net worth needed to join the "Forbes 400" list in 2018 was $2.1 billion, the highest amount ever for admission.

That knocked Under Armour founder Kevin Plank off this year's list; the Baltimore area entrepreneur has a net worth of $1.9B, according to Forbes.

In all, Forbes says the net worth of the 400 richest Americans was a record high of $2.9 trillion, and half of that belongs to just the 45 richest people in the country.

In Maryland, seven residents made it to the elite club. More than half of them have invested in sports teams, including the Baltimore Ravens, Washington Nationals, Washington Redskins and St. Louis Cardinals.

These are the Maryland residents on the Forbes 400 list:

• No. 136 Ted Lerner, 92, and family; net worth $4.9B (real estate)
• No. 168 Steven Bisciotti, 58; net worth $4.3B (staffing, Baltimore Ravens)
• Nov. 200 Bernard Saul II, 86; net worth $3.8B (banking, real estate)
• Nov. 207 Mitchell Rales, 62; net worth $3.7B (manufacturing, investments)
• No. 280 Jim Davis, 58; net worth $2.9B (staffing and recruiting)
• No. 280 David Rubenstein, 69; $2.9B (private equity)
• No. 368 Dan Snyder, 53; $2.2B (Washington Redskins)

Forbes’ takes a hard and thorough look at the wealth of those on the list to figure out just how much they’re worth. Reporters at Forbes conduct interviews, look over documents, assets and factor in debt in their calculations. (You can see a more detailed methodology here.)

Ted Lerner of Chevy Chase founded the commercial real estate firm Lerner Enterprises. His family is the majority owner of the Washington Nationals. In 1952 Lerner borrowed $250 from his wife to start a real estate company, selling homes for developers. Now he owns millions of square feet in commercial and retail space, plus hotels and apartments.

Stephen Bisciotti of Millersville is co-founder of Allegis staffing company and owner of the Baltimore Ravens. Bisciotti and his cousin, fellow billionaire Jim Davis, started what would become Allegis Group — now one of the world's biggest staffing companies — in 1983. Originally called Aerotek and focused on filling aeronautics, engineering and light industrial jobs, today Allegis Group places people in sectors spanning from IT to finance.

Bernard Saul II of Chevy Chase is chairman and CEO of Saul Centers Inc. Saul inherited his grandfather's Washington, D.C.-based real estate company. Within a few years he expanded from real estate to banking, developing the plans for what became Chevy Chase Federal Savings Bank, which he sold to Capital One for $476 million in 2009. In the 1990s he founded another REIT, Saul Centers, which owns real estate, mostly shopping centers and office properties in Washington, D.C., and Baltimore.

Mitchell Rales of Potomac is co-founder of Danaher investment firm. Three decades after building it into an industrial conglomerate, Steven Rales and his brother, Mitchell, broke their empire into two halves: one part devoted to science and technology, in late 2016.

Jim Davis of Cockeysville is co-founder and now head of staffing powerhouse Allegis. Davis is the chairman of staffing firm Allegis Group, which he co-founded with cousin and business partner Stephen Bisciotti in 1983. The company was originally called Aerotek, and it matched job seekers with aeronautics, engineering and light industrial jobs. Davis bought in as a minority partner of baseball's St. Louis Cardinals in 2010.

David Rubenstein of Bethesda is co-chief executive officer and co-founder of Carlyle Group. Rubenstein cofounded Carlyle in 1987; he raised the money and managed its stable of advisers, which has included George H.W. Bush and ex-British prime minister John Major. Rubenstein has donated millions to restore the Lincoln Memorial, preserve the Washington Monument and facilitate panda life at the National Zoo.

Dan Snyder of Potomac is owner of the Washington Redskins. A lifelong Redskins fan, Snyder bought the NFL team for $800 million after Jack Kent Cooke's death in 1997. Snyder made his first fortune in marketing, when Snyder Communications sold advertisements placed on boards inside of buildings, and distributed product samples. The firm went public in 1996, making Snyder, then 32, the youngest CEO on the New York Stock Exchange. He also owns private equity firm Red Zone Capital.

These are the top 10 billionaires on the list:

1. Jeff Bezos (Amazon)
2. Bill Gates (Microsoft)
3. Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway)
4. Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)
5. Larry Ellison (software)
6. Larry Page (Google)
7. Charles Koch (Koch Industries)
8. David Koch (Koch Industries)
9. Sergey Brin (Google)
10. Michael Bloomberg (Bloomberg LP)

You can see the full list here, and a report from Forbes about it.

Some notable points from Forbes’ reporting:

• Of the 400 people on the list, 57 were women.
• Those with self-made fortunes vastly outnumbered those with inherited wealth.
• President Donald Trump dropped 11 spots on the list compared to 2017, coming in at No. 259; see the New York Times account of how Trump accumulated his wealth, which differs significantly from the president’s account.

— By Feroze Dhanoa, Elizabeth Janney and Deb Belt

Pictured, Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder at FedExField on August 7, 2014, in Landover, Maryland. (Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images)