The Forbes 400: Tennessee's 8 Wealthiest Billionaires Ranked

The eight Tennesseans who made the Forbes 400 list of billionaires and billionaire families are worth a combined $27.5 billion, roughly a third of the fortune of perennial list-leader and founder of Microsoft Bill Gates.

Half of the octet made the Forbes 400 — Self-Made list and Martha Ingram came in at No. 20 on the Forbes 400 — Women list.

Here are the eight Tennessee billionaires and billionaire families, ranked according to their wealth.

1. Private-hospital giants Thomas H. Frist Jr. and family, founders of HCA, once again led the way for Tennessee with a net worth of $7.9 billion. The Frists are ranked No. 55 nationally this year, down one spot from last year's number. Frist Jr., 78, and his father founded Hospital Corporation of America in 1968 and took it public for the third time in 2011. Brother Bill is a former U.S. Senate Majority Leader and while Thomas Jr. is no longer an executive with the company, sons Thomas III and William are board members. HCA operates 165 hospitals and 115 surgery centers.

2 (tie). Barge and book billionaires Martha Ingram and family ranked 156th nationally with a net worth of $3.7 billion. Ingram, 81, took over Ingram Industries when her husband Bronson Ingram died in 1995 and led the company until 2008 when sons Orrin and John took over. Ingram Content provides on-demand printing and digital delivery services to Barnes & Noble, Amazon and a host of publishers. Ingram Marine operates 5,000 barges and 140 tugboats on America's inland waters. Ingram is the doyen of Nashville society, sitting on a number of boards for cultural and education institutions.

2 (tie). FedEx founder Fred Smith is the richest man in West Tennessee and shares the 156th spot nationally with the Ingrams with a net worth of $3.7 billion. Smith founded the now-ubiquitous shipping company in 1971 and lost $29 million in just over two years, legendarily wiring $27,000 in blackjack winnings from Las Vegas to Memphis to keep the company afloat. With the rise of online shopping, FedEx is stronger than ever, topping $50 billion in revenues for the first time this year. Smith is up from last year's ranking of 171 and hits 103 on the Forbes 400 — Self Made list.

4. Cleveland Browns owner, powerful University of Tennessee booster and Pilot/Flying J CEO Jimmy Haslam hits 174 on the national list. The governor's brother is up 60 spots from last year as Pilot works through the fallout of the settlement of a federal lawsuit in which the company, founded by his father in 1958, admitted to defrauding customers and had to shell out $92 million.

5. Gov. Bill Haslam may be the most powerful man in the state in a constitutional sense, but at $2.5 billion he's only the fifth-richest Tennessean and second-richest Haslam. The governor served as president of Pilot until 1999, became mayor of Knoxville in 2003 and was elected governor in 2010. He is ranked 274th nationally.

6. Franklin's former tobacco man, horse breeder and publishing dabbler Brad Kelley's net worth of $2.2 billion puts him at 321 on the Forbes 400. Kelley founded discount-cigarette manufacturer Commonwealth Brands — makers of USA Golds — in 1991 and sold it 10 years later for $1 billion. He purchased Lonely Planet from the BBC in 2013, the same year his horse Oxbow won the Preakness. Kelley owns 1.5 million acres of land across the country, making him one of the U.S.'s largest private land holders.

7. At $2.1 billion, Chattanooga flooring magnate Jeff Lorberbaum hit 335 on the Forbes rankings. Lorberbaum owns 15 percent of the publicly held Mohawk Industries, the country's largest flooring manufacturer and based just across the state line in Calhoun, Ga. His father, Alan, founded bathmat manufacturer Aladdin in 1957, which was purchased by Mohawk in 1994. Lorberbaum took over Mohawk in 2001.

8. Jon Yarbrough built his first video casino game in his garage while in college. Today he is worth $1.79 billion and is No. 374 on the Forbes list. While a student at Tennessee Tech, Yarbrough leased his foosball table to a Cookeville bar, agreeing to split the profits 50/50. After he graduated, he expanded that model to other venues and then used the money to start Video Gaming Technologies in 1991, which in 2004 was the fastest growing private company in the country, in any industry, in 2004. He then sold VGT — he was the only stockholder and had no debt — in all-cash deal in 2014. He now runs Yarbrough Capital, a VC firm in Franklin.

Buffett Bumped from No. 2

Read more about the list, click here. Together, the business luminaries have a record-breaking net worth of $2.4 trillion, up from $2.34 trillion in 2015. The list ranks the top 10 richest Americans — behind Gates, who topped the list for the 23rd consecutive year, is Amazon’s Jeff Bezos (No. 2), who with a net worth of $67 is the highest-gainer on the list. His fortune shot up $20 million from 2015 after Amazon stock shares surged 56 percent.
Bezos bumped Warren Buffett from the No. 2 spot. Now at No. 3, he’s getting richer; his $65.5 million fortune is up $3.5 billion from 2015. Also among the top tier of billionaires are No. 4 Mark Zuckerberg, worth $55.5 billion, who made it into the top fice for the first time; and No. 5 Larry Ellison, worth $49.3 billion, up $1.8 billion from last year; Ellison drops from the number 3 rank for the first time since 2007.
Some other highlights:

Success of Immigrants

The theme of the 2016 Forbes 400 package is the success of immigrants and the thriving American dream. There are a record number of Forbes 400 list members born outside the U.S., and that’s a positive trend in terms of entrepreneurship and job growth. The number of immigrants on The Forbes 400 has more than doubled since 1986; this year 42 slots (including three married couples) on The Forbes 400 list are occupied by naturalized citizens who immigrated to America. That represents 10.5% of the list, a significant number, considering that naturalized citizens make up only 6% of the U.S. population. Forbes 400 members came from 21 different nations, led by Israel (6), India (5), Hungary (4) and Taiwan (4).

Tracking The Donald

Donald Trump fell 35 spots to No. 156 this year. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, is worth $3.7 billion, down $800 million from last year, largely due to a decrease in New York real estate prices and new information about his holdings.Forbes presents an asset-by-asset breakdown of his empire. Forbes has been tracking Trump’s fortune since the debut of The Forbes 400 in 1982. His fortune is real, though by no means approaching the $10 billion that Trump continues to maintain he is worth, Forbes said.

Additional reporting from Beth Dalbey

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