Wilbur Ross Net Worth

What is Wilbur Ross's Net Worth?

Wilbur Ross is an American businessman who has a net worth of $860 million. Wilbur Ross is probably best known for serving as the U.S. Secretary of Commerce from 2017 to 2021. Before that, from 2000 to 2017, he was chairman and CEO of his private equity firm WL Ross & Co., which specialized in acquiring and restructuring bankrupt companies and then selling them at a profit.

Early Life and Education

Wilbur Ross Jr. was born on November 28, 1937 in Weehawken, New Jersey and was raised in nearby North Bergen. His mother Agnes was a grade school teacher, and his father Wilbur Sr. was a lawyer who later became a judge. Ross attended Xavier High School in Manhattan before going to Yale College, where he edited a literary magazine and worked at the radio station. After graduating from Yale in 1959, he enrolled at Harvard Business School, from which he obtained his MBA in 1961.

Business Career

While still a student at Yale, Ross landed a summer job on Wall Street. Later, following his graduation from Harvard Business School, he liquidated the portfolio of a bank's venture capital affiliate. Ross subsequently joined Faulkner, Dawkins & Sullivan, a securities research company. He eventually became the president of the firm's investment banking operation. In 1976, Ross joined the New York City office of the alternative assets investor Rothschild & Co., where he would remain for 24 years. He headed the company's bankruptcy restructuring practice, in which he acquired and restructured failed companies in such industries as steel, coal, and textiles and later sold them at a profit. By the end of his tenure at Rothschild & Co., Ross had been involved in eight of the biggest bankruptcies to date, including those of Texaco and Eastern Air Lines.

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WL Ross & Co.

In 2000, Ross left Rothschild & Co. and founded his own private equity firm, WL Ross & Co. Continuing his prior work with distressed securities and bankruptcy restructuring, the company focused on investments in financially floundering companies with undervalued stocks, which it would then leverage into turnarounds and mergers. In 2002, WL Ross started acquiring the assets of such bankrupt steel companies as Bethlehem Steel, LTV Steel, and Acme Steel. Combining those companies, Ross founded International Steel Group, which became the largest integrated steel company in the US. In 2005, ISG was acquired by Mittal Steel for $4.5 billion, with Ross gaining a seat on the company's board of directors. The following year, WL Ross was acquired by the investment management company Invesco.

In other investments, WL Ross acquired Burlington Industries and merged it with Cone Mills in 2004 to create International Textile Group. A couple of years later, ITG merged with Safety Components International, which was also controlled by Ross. In 2016, ITG was acquired by the private equity firm Platinum Equity. WL Ross also formed International Automotive Components Group and International Coal Group, the latter of which was acquired by Arch Coal in 2011. Elsewhere, the company heavily invested in the liquified gas shipping company Navigator Gas, becoming its single biggest investor by 2016. WL Ross has been the subject of serious controversy over the years due to charges of grift, insider trading, overcharging of fees, and violations of worker safety.

US Secretary of Commerce

At the end of February in 2017, Ross became the new U.S. Secretary of Commerce. At the age of 79, he became the oldest first-time Cabinet appointee in the country's history. During his tenure through 2021, Ross was criticized for his role in escalating trade wars with other countries, causing damage to the US economy and to relations with the nation's allies. He was also derided for being out of touch, such as when he suggested that unpaid workers should apply for personal loans instead of visiting food banks.

One of Ross's most serious (and potentially criminal) charges was related to conflicts of interest stemming from his failure to divest his companies' financial holdings. A 2018 investigation by Forbes revealed that he still owned stakes in companies around the world, including ones co-owned by the Chinese government. Moreover, he was accused of insider trading after shorting at least five stocks in 2018, a criminal violation for a holder of federal office.

The US Commerce Department spokesman went on to deny the accusations found in the report in a separate press statement:

"The anonymously sourced Forbes story is based on false rumors, innuendo, and unverifiable claims. The fact remains that no regulator has made any of these accusations against the Secretary … This rehash of old stories is clearly the result of a personal vendetta. The baseless claims made in this story were well publicized long ago and are not news."

Ross sparked more controversy and criminal accusations in 2020 when he sought to amend the US census with a question asking about US citizenship status. After he lied under oath about the origins of the citizenship question, falsely claiming it was prompted by the Department of Justice, he was held in criminal contempt of Congress. This made Ross just the second sitting Cabinet member in US history to be held in contempt. Ross was not prosecuted by Trump's Justice Department. In the subsequent Supreme Court decision of Department of Commerce v. New York, the controversial citizenship question was officially blocked from the 2020 US census.

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Other Roles

Among his other roles, Ross was on the board of the US Russia Investment Fund during the Clinton administration, when Ross was still a registered Democrat. He also has several board memberships, including with the Bank of Cyprus, the Yale School of Management, and Navigator Gas.

Personal Life

Ross married his first wife, Judith Nodine, in 1961. They had two children named Jessica and Amanda, and eventually divorced in 1995. Ross wed his second wife, politician Betsy McCaughey, in 1995. She served as the lieutenant governor of New York from 1995 to 1998. The couple divorced in 2000. Ross went on to wed businessman Hilary Geary in 2004.

Ross has owned luxury residences in Manhattan, Washington, DC, the Berkshires, and Palm Beach, Florida. An avid art collector, he owns an eclectic collection valued at around $150 million. Included in the collection are over 20 works by Belgian surrealist René Magritte.

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