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Money, Money, Money

Aired September 19, 2003 - 15:40   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The richest Americans who got even richer this years, according to "Forbes" magazine, which likes to measure.
Joining me to talk about who made the top 400, and who's out as well, Cheryl Glazer of Public Radio International's "Marketplace."

Cheryl,good to see you.

CHERYL GLAZER, : Good to see you, Miles. Thanks a lot.

O'BRIEN: All right. Well, let's talk about some of the people. We've heard about Gates and Warren Buffett and all that stuff. That gets boring. Let's talk about some of the more surprising second- tier types, like the "Beanie Baby" guy, Ty Warner. How is he still worth a billion?

GLAZER: Well, I mean, this has to be one very financially savvy guy, because you knew they were valuable, but little did you know they might be $6 billion valuable. Six billion is what he's worth. He's in the top 30. And apparently, what he did was took the money from the Beanie Babies.

O'BRIEN: That's a lot of pellets.

GLAZER: You got it.

Apparently what he did is took the money from when the Beanie Babies were still hot and invested it in real estate, maybe not Oprah's house, but we're talking some swank hotels, a golf course outside Santa Barbara, and has grown that into a nice fortune, thank you.

O'BRIEN: So the Beanie Baby fortune was parlayed well. It's not necessarily the Beanie Babies themselves are what's generating this cash.

GLAZER: That's right.

O'BRIEN: All right's, let's talk about somebody who, geez, when the Internet bubble was raging, he was man of the year, Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com. He was man of the year. But I didn't think that there were any dot-commers on the list in high favor still.

GLAZER: Well, believe it or not, there are still a lot of them who are on the list, and Jeff Bezos, the biggest mover this year. His fortune more than doubled. He's now worth over $5 billion. Part of it may just be that Amazon, of course, one of the few Internet companies that is actually profitable, and that does help, right?

O'BRIEN: All right, so he's doing OK. Actually making money, that's a good idea. He was an exception, wasn't he, to that little rule they had there.

All right, let's talk about -- let's move into candy, shall we, Mars Candy. That's one you don't pay much attention to. It's M&Ms. It's fairly straightforward.

GLAZER: And we're talking America's sweet tooth is worth a lot of family. This family, two brother and a sister, they all come in as the number 15 spot. They're worth a nice, tidy $10.5 billion. The company is still family owned. It's the second largest candy company in the country.

O'BRIEN: And have they diversified, or is this just still M&Ms, it's like a blue-chip candy kind of property?

GLAZER: Definitely a blue-chip candy property. Like I said, it's still family-owned, so they are controlling all of it, and then I guess also from what I understand they are very financially savvy, and my waistline will prove, too, the value of owning a candy company.

O'BRIEN: We do have our weaknesses, don't we? That's a tough one to resist.

All right, as long as we're talking about weaknesses, the chewing gum here, the Wrigley family, they are on their -- I don't what number are they at, Wrigley?

GLAZER: They are -- I believe it's Bill Wrigley, and he's at number 49. He's 39, his person wealth they put at about $3.3 billion. His family still controls much of the company, and he's the fourth generation of his family to run the Wrigley Company. So that's a lot of chewing gum.

O'BRIEN: And once again, this is kind of a blue-chip company that's well-run?

GLAZER: And they still, much of it, in control of one family. So a fair amount of money to go around to just a few people.

O'BRIEN: All right. And then finally, let's go to somebody a little closer to us here. Ted Turner, how he's doing?

GLAZER: Ted Turner, like a lot of the other names you associate with a lot of money, you know, David Rockefeller, Donald Trump, not quite as high up on this list as you might think. Mr. Turner at number 78. They put his fortune at $2.3 billion. This the same man of course who pledged $1 billion to the U.N. just a few ago, so he gave a lot of his money away, but don't cry for him too much, he still has 70 million shares of Time Warner hanging around, so.

O'BRIEN: Well, you could cry for somebody with 70 million shares of that formerly AOL, Time Warner stock, but obviously, that's where he took the big hit, on that stock. GLAZER: That's right, because he sold 60 million shares earlier this year when the stock market wasn't doing that great. So definitely didn't get top dollar for it at that time.

O'BRIEN: All right, and, Cheryl, how close are you to getting on the list? There's always next year, right?

GLAZER: I am so far off this list, I'll just try and take some good notes and hope to learn some lessons.

O'BRIEN: All right, well, we enjoy hearing you on the radio. Good to see you in person.

GLAZER: Thank you so much, Miles.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired September 19, 2003 - 15:40   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The richest Americans who got even richer this years, according to "Forbes" magazine, which likes to measure.
Joining me to talk about who made the top 400, and who's out as well, Cheryl Glazer of Public Radio International's "Marketplace."

Cheryl,good to see you.

CHERYL GLAZER, : Good to see you, Miles. Thanks a lot.

O'BRIEN: All right. Well, let's talk about some of the people. We've heard about Gates and Warren Buffett and all that stuff. That gets boring. Let's talk about some of the more surprising second- tier types, like the "Beanie Baby" guy, Ty Warner. How is he still worth a billion?

GLAZER: Well, I mean, this has to be one very financially savvy guy, because you knew they were valuable, but little did you know they might be $6 billion valuable. Six billion is what he's worth. He's in the top 30. And apparently, what he did was took the money from the Beanie Babies.

O'BRIEN: That's a lot of pellets.

GLAZER: You got it.

Apparently what he did is took the money from when the Beanie Babies were still hot and invested it in real estate, maybe not Oprah's house, but we're talking some swank hotels, a golf course outside Santa Barbara, and has grown that into a nice fortune, thank you.

O'BRIEN: So the Beanie Baby fortune was parlayed well. It's not necessarily the Beanie Babies themselves are what's generating this cash.

GLAZER: That's right.

O'BRIEN: All right's, let's talk about somebody who, geez, when the Internet bubble was raging, he was man of the year, Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com. He was man of the year. But I didn't think that there were any dot-commers on the list in high favor still.

GLAZER: Well, believe it or not, there are still a lot of them who are on the list, and Jeff Bezos, the biggest mover this year. His fortune more than doubled. He's now worth over $5 billion. Part of it may just be that Amazon, of course, one of the few Internet companies that is actually profitable, and that does help, right?

O'BRIEN: All right, so he's doing OK. Actually making money, that's a good idea. He was an exception, wasn't he, to that little rule they had there.

All right, let's talk about -- let's move into candy, shall we, Mars Candy. That's one you don't pay much attention to. It's M&Ms. It's fairly straightforward.

GLAZER: And we're talking America's sweet tooth is worth a lot of family. This family, two brother and a sister, they all come in as the number 15 spot. They're worth a nice, tidy $10.5 billion. The company is still family owned. It's the second largest candy company in the country.

O'BRIEN: And have they diversified, or is this just still M&Ms, it's like a blue-chip candy kind of property?

GLAZER: Definitely a blue-chip candy property. Like I said, it's still family-owned, so they are controlling all of it, and then I guess also from what I understand they are very financially savvy, and my waistline will prove, too, the value of owning a candy company.

O'BRIEN: We do have our weaknesses, don't we? That's a tough one to resist.

All right, as long as we're talking about weaknesses, the chewing gum here, the Wrigley family, they are on their -- I don't what number are they at, Wrigley?

GLAZER: They are -- I believe it's Bill Wrigley, and he's at number 49. He's 39, his person wealth they put at about $3.3 billion. His family still controls much of the company, and he's the fourth generation of his family to run the Wrigley Company. So that's a lot of chewing gum.

O'BRIEN: And once again, this is kind of a blue-chip company that's well-run?

GLAZER: And they still, much of it, in control of one family. So a fair amount of money to go around to just a few people.

O'BRIEN: All right. And then finally, let's go to somebody a little closer to us here. Ted Turner, how he's doing?

GLAZER: Ted Turner, like a lot of the other names you associate with a lot of money, you know, David Rockefeller, Donald Trump, not quite as high up on this list as you might think. Mr. Turner at number 78. They put his fortune at $2.3 billion. This the same man of course who pledged $1 billion to the U.N. just a few ago, so he gave a lot of his money away, but don't cry for him too much, he still has 70 million shares of Time Warner hanging around, so.

O'BRIEN: Well, you could cry for somebody with 70 million shares of that formerly AOL, Time Warner stock, but obviously, that's where he took the big hit, on that stock. GLAZER: That's right, because he sold 60 million shares earlier this year when the stock market wasn't doing that great. So definitely didn't get top dollar for it at that time.

O'BRIEN: All right, and, Cheryl, how close are you to getting on the list? There's always next year, right?

GLAZER: I am so far off this list, I'll just try and take some good notes and hope to learn some lessons.

O'BRIEN: All right, well, we enjoy hearing you on the radio. Good to see you in person.

GLAZER: Thank you so much, Miles.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com