David H. Murdock Net Worth & Biography

David Murdock is best known for being the chairman and principal shareholder of Dole Food Company Inc., a company that is considered to be the world’s largest producer and distributor of high-quality fresh fruits and vegetables. He is also the owner, chairman, and chief executive officer of the private company Castle & Cooke Inc. In 2010, Mr. Murdock, an advocate of eating healthy to live a more vital life, authored “The Dole Nutrition Handbook – What to Eat & How to Live For a Longer, Healthier Life”, which contained useful information collected from leading nutrition and scientific experts on diet and healthy lifestyle. He also organized the collaborative contributions of experts at Dole Food Company, the University of California at Los Angeles, and Mayo Clinic to publish a 500-page book on achieving a healthier lifestyle through disease prevention, nutrition, and exercise, titled “The Encyclopedia of Foods – A Guide to Healthy Nutrition”.

Not only that, but he is well-known for developing various structures aimed at benefitting other people in the society. He developed a center for wellness in Westlake Village, California, which houses the California Health & Longevity Institute. The 769,600-square-foot complex includes a television production studio, a Four Seasons Hotel, and a healthy lifestyle teaching center. In North Carolina, he developed the North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis. He and Dole Food Company have provided two professorships at NC State Plants for Human Health Institute, and the list of his beneficial efforts to those around him goes on and on. More details regarding David Murdock’s biography and businesses have been made available below.

Early Life: Childhood, Education

He was born David Howard Murdock on April 11, 1923, in Kansas City, Missouri, United States.

His mother worked as a housekeeper and laundress to make ends meet. On the other hand, his father was employed as a traveling salesman.

David is the middle child of three. He was the only son of his parents and maintained a close relationship with his mother who died of cancer at 42.

He grew up in Montgomery Township in Ohio and dropped out of high school because he couldn’t concentrate on his studies. In 1943, he was drafted by the US Army during World War II.

Professional Life: Businesses & Investments

After the war, David relocated to Detroit where he was homeless and destitute. Due to a chance encounter with a stranger who helped him, David obtained a $1,200 loan to buy a closing diner, which he later flipped for a $700 profit ten months later. He relocated to Phoenix, Arizona, and found employment there, first working in housing and later commercial real estate. When the real estate market crumbled in the 1960s, he moved once again to Los Angeles where he focused on developing real estate opportunities, leading to a chain of acquisitions. In 1978 he acquired control of International Mining. In the early 1980s he became the largest investor in Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum, by selling his 18 percent share of the Iowa Beef Packers company to the corporation.

From 1982, after the death of Charles Cannon, David Murdock owned Cannon Mills in Kannapolis, North Carolina, until 1985 when he sold the business to Fieldcrest.

In 1985 Murdock took over the bankrupt Hawaiian company Castle & Cooke, which owned banana and pineapple producer Dole Food Company. He established Castle & Cooke’s real estate portfolio into commercial and residential properties, and turned Dole into the biggest producer of fruits and vegetables in the world. Acquiring Dole privately in 2003, this brilliant entrepreneur completed a $446 million IPO in October 2009, and the fruits-producer traded on the New York Stock Exchange until a private merger agreement was approved on the 31^st of October 2013. As a result of his acquisition of Castle & Cooke, David acquired ownership of 98 percent of Lana’i, the 6^th largest island in Hawaii. In 2012 he sold his stake in Lana’i to Larry Ellison. To also include, this magnate owns numerous other companies as well, including Pacific Clay.

Achievements: Awards & Honors

Furthermore, this businessman has been a Regent’s Professor of Creativity in Business at the University of California at Los Angeles’ Anderson Graduate School of Management. He is the recipient of an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters degrees from Hawaii Loa College and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and an honorary Doctorate of Law degree from Pepperdine University.

Personal Life: Relationships, Wife, Children, Hobbies, Residence

Mr. David Murdock has been married on six occasions. He married his third wife, Gabriele in 1967. They had two children and he also adopted her son from a previous relationship. In 1983, Gabriele was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and she died in 1985. A year later, Gabriele’s son from her first marriage died after hitting his head when he was swimming in the family estate’s swimming pool. In 2004, David’s son David Jr. died in a road accident on the Santa Monica Freeway. His only surviving son Justin serves as the executive chairman and chief executive officer of NovaRx. Justin is also the senior vice president of investments for Castle & Cooke. Previously, he served as the director of Dole Food Company, and also chaired their audit and finance committee until he retired on May 17, 2013.

His hobbies include horticulture, poetry, reading, and the arts. He is a breeder of valued Arabian horses and owns an orchid collection consisting of over 30,000 plants. The businessman is also an avid art and antique furniture collector.

He resides in California and owns homes in New York, Hawaii, and North Carolina.

David H. Murdock Net Worth: Salary, Income Sources, Assets

The American businessman and philanthropist, David H. Murdoch, currently owns a net worth of $4 billion. The major source of his wealth has been his investments, particularly his Dole Food Company Inc. which is currently positioned as a global leader in the production and marketing of fresh fruits and vegetables.

In 2011, Forbes magazine ranked him as the 190th-richest person in the world. As of today, the 98-year-old influential businessman ranks below the 700^th place in the World’s Billionaires list.