Hartford Business Journal

21 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | JUNE 28 2021 physical battle with an opponent — fellow billionaire and Greenwich resident Vincent McMahon. McMahon is the chairman and CEO of entertainment company World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), which earned $974 million in revenue last year. In 2007, he got body-slammed by Trump — in an apparently staged encounter — before a live audience at WrestleMania 23. Later, according to the taped report, the then- developer shaved McMahon's head. Apparently there were no hard feelings — in 2017, as president, Trump appointed McMahon's wife, Linda, as administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration. McMahon grew up in a trailer park in North Carolina and joined his father's small wrestling company in 1972, according to Forbes. About a decade later he bought the then-regional World Wrestling Federation and built it into the global WWE. Forbes notes that WWE went public in 1999; and today broadcasts programs in some 150 countries and more than 30 languages. With a reported net worth of more than $2 billion, according to Forbes, there aren't many people that can push McMahon around today. 12. Mario Gabelli Founder Gabelli Asset Management, New York Net Worth: $1.8 billion G reenwich resident Mario J. Gabelli is chairman and CEO of GAMCO [Gabelli Asset Management Co.] Investors Inc., a firm he founded in 1977. A 1965 summa cum laude graduate of Fordham University's College of Business Administration, he also holds an MBA from the Columbia University Graduate School of Business. Gabelli gained a reputation as a stock-picker in the 1980s when he successfully bet on the media and telecom sectors, according to published reports. In an interview at the end of 2020, Gabelli — whose net worth is estimated at $1.8 billion, according to Forbes — said he sees consumers as driving the economy, noting that COVID-19 vaccines are likely to help spur the travel and leisure segments. But "you also need an element of [government] support for a certain part of the population," he added, particularly "restaurants and small businesses." He also called for infrastructure improvements. Gabelli sees opportunity in some cyclical industries, like auto, construction and housing. 10. William R. Berkley Chairman and CEO WR Berkley, Greenwich Net Worth: $3 billion W illiam R. Berkley takes a long-term view. The Greenwich resident launched W. R. Berkley Corp., a Fortune 500 property- casualty insurance holding company, in 1967 and served continuously as chairman of the board and the company's CEO until October 2015, when he became executive chairman. He's also chairman of many of the company's diversified subsidiaries, including investment management firm Berkley Dean & Co. Berkley — who has an estimated net worth of $3 billion and maintains property in Greenwich, according to some records — also believes in thinking small, while leveraging the power of large. "Every Berkley company has the ability to react as quickly and effectively as a small business, while offering the superior stability and resources of W. R. Berkley Corp.," according to a company announcement. The approach works. At the end of 2020, W. R. Berkley Corp. reported that operating cash flow increased 41.3% to more than $1.6 billion, gross and net premiums written increased 7.1% and 5.8%, respectively, while book value per share grew 10.5%, before share repurchases and dividends. Total capital returned to shareholders was $430 million, including $346 million of share repurchases and $84 million of dividends. In an earlier interview with Leaders magazine, Berkley laid out some of his philosophy: "Every entrepreneur always wants to find ways to do things better, faster and bigger. The list of things I keep is a list of the stupid things I've done that have almost been catastrophic failures. It's a list I keep to make sure I don't repeat any of them. I'm never worried about celebrating the successes; I'm more worried about trying to avoid the pitfalls." 11. Vincent McMahon Chairman and CEO WWE, Stamford Net Worth: $2.1 billion F ormer President Donald Trump has engaged in wars of words with many people, but as far as we know there's only been one documented trade journal Supply Chain Brain, Jacobs — who is worth about $3 billion, according to Forbes — talked about his approach to growth, which balances "organic" expansion through sales and marketing and acquisitions. In December, XPO announced plans to spin off 100% of its logistics segment as a separate, publicly- traded company. Interesting fact: According to Forbes, Jacobs is a trained classical pianist who studied piano and mathematics at Brown University before he dropped out of the institution. 9. Stephen Mandel, Jr. Founder Lone Pine Capital, Greenwich Net Worth: $3.9 billion I n mid-2020, Lone Pine Capital hedge fund manager and Greenwich resident Stephen Mandel was "betting big" on e-commerce and other internet stocks, according to CNBC. Mandel, who has an estimated net worth of $3.9 billion, according to Forbes, founded Lone Pine Capital in 1996 and reportedly has turned in one of the best long-term track records in the industry. At the end of the first quarter of 2020, Lone Pine's top stock picks included Amazon, Alibaba, Microsoft, Facebook, PayPal and other e-commerce-related firms, in addition to ones like Visa and Mastercard. Lone Pine continues to focus largely — but not exclusively — on tech, according to a March Yahoo! Finance report on the fund's SEC filings. His top five holdings include Netflix Inc., Global Payments (which offers payment processing services to merchants), Microsoft, software company Coupa Software Inc. and Shopify. Interesting fact: According to a Dec. 2020 interview, Mandel's role models include Walmart founder Sam Walton, for his attention to detail and familiarity with people. According to Mandel, at a Walmart annual meeting — where each store could send three employees — Walton could point to someone in the audience and say, "Betty Lou, I was in your crafts department in Ocala, [Fla.] and you had this great display." Two others are former Costco executives: co-founder and former CEO Jim Sinegal and co-founder and former chairman Jeff Brotman "because of the culture they built at the company. It was able to offer the lowest prices on the highest-quality goods and at the same time pay their people at the top scale…" while also offering the "best healthcare benefits of anybody in the retail business." "We understand growth and cyclicality," he said. "Sports betting and sports are coming back [with the vaccines] … ." He said a big catalyst was Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association, a May 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision that basically overturned a two-decade- plus restriction on sports betting. "That's a terrific new business that's gonna unfold," according to Gabelli. 13. Clifford Asness Co-Founder AQR Capital Management, Greenwich Net Worth: $1.4 billion G reenwich resident Cliff Asness, founder, managing principal and chief investment officer at AQR (Applied Quantitative Research) Capital Management, is something of a renaissance individual. In addition to heading a successful global investment management firm with assets under management that reportedly exceed $180 billion — and an estimated personal net worth of $1.4 billion, according to Forbes — Asness is a scholar. He's an active researcher who's authored award-winning and other articles on a variety of financial topics for publications like The Journal of Portfolio Management, Financial Analysts Journal, The Journal of Finance and The Journal of Financial Economics; and more than 40% of AQR's employees hold advanced degrees, including about 50 with Ph.Ds. AQR is noted for its sometimes- controversial "factor investing" approach, which involves targeting specific drivers of return across asset classes. "Factor investing has long faced criticisms…" Asness noted recently. But, adds Asness, he and his colleagues have "long addressed these concerns through robust out- of-sample evidence and a compelling theory for why a factor should work. My colleagues' new paper tests brilliantly, what we have argued, largely anecdotally, for years." Value investing — a strategy that involves picking stocks that appear to be trading for less than their intrinsic or book value — is one of AQR's core approaches. That may be why he's not so hot on Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency that's exploded in value recently. "Trend following alone is not a super high sharp strategy, particularly for one asset," he asserted in a January Bloomberg interview. "A [quantitative analyst] who focuses on trend following and says 'I'm adding WEALTHIEST PEOPLE IN CT

• Cover