so it's Sunday night, I am in a crazily large city all by myself with tons of stuffs to do but I prefer procrastinating.....
I started web browsing and found a Forbe's article speculating that the Rockefeller family fortune is now
only 10 billion dollars.
Personally I find this number too low, but as the family financial documents are not open to the public, an interested person could only speculate just how much wealth these "gods among men" possess. Curious, I decided to do some legwork:
http://www.standardoiltrust.com/http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/17/specials/rockefeller-gifts.htmlThe articles stated that by 1923, Rockefeller Sr. owned less than 1% of any baby SO companies (but still had an annual taxable income of over $1M); his son, Jr. owned shares with market value of $410M and received an annual divi of $11M (it's unclear how much % of shares this represents). We must remember that this $410M figure did not include any other assets the family might have, or any of Jr.'s other assets for that matter.
If we use this $410M as a conservative starting point, then adjust it for inflation (no share appreciation, no dividend, basically just money sitting in the bank making [sometimes less than] minimal interest), it'd be roughly $10B, perhaps that's where Forbe's got their number from.
Most researches convey the same story that the family has a very rigid structure on family finances and that its assets are centrally managed to avoid squandering. Over the years the family had obviously sold a large portion of its holdings, at least XOM shares, as the company pointed out in 2008. My guess is they used some of that money to finance their investment companies... On average, the stock market went up 170x between 1923 to 2014 (dow 100 to dow 17000), this overly simplified approach based solely on share appreciation implies the family now has around $70B, perhaps $100B if we include the divi?
I still feel this figure is too low, as the rich typically has much better investment opportunities than mere mortals like you and I. Some people estimate their wealth to be over $600B in 1974, while others claim they are no longer a force to be reckoned with:
http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2008/05/27/do-the-rockefellers-still-matter/http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~schwrtz/Rockefeller.htmlIt's really anyone's guess, come share yours if you want to play !
