Ronald Perelman Net Worth & Biography

According to a recent report by Forbes Magazine, Ronald Perelman’s net worth is estimated at $4 billion. He is one of the eminent corporate investors of the 1980s and 1990s and currently makes his money as the chairman of the holding company “MacAndrews & Forbes”. This businessman is considered to be one of the richest in America. He is also quite famous for his several cases of marriages and divorces.

Chairman Ronald made his fortune by buying and flipping big name companies and amassing enormous wealth in return. Born in North Carolina and raised in Philadelphia, he acquired his MBA degree at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and joined his father’s sheet-metal manufacturing business afterward. To establish his own business, the pioneering personality moved to New York and purchased a jewelry company called Cohen Hatfield Industries, followed by the acquisition of the MacAndrews & Forbes company which ultimately became his mammoth profit-grossing privately-owned company handling diverse firms like Harland Clarke, Deluxe Film, Marvel Entertainment, Scientific Games Corporation, Allied Security, and Revlon, booming his wealth in return. The affluent financier is also a big-hearted philanthropist. He founded the Revlon/University of California in Los Angeles’s Women’s Cancer Research Program and made huge donations to medical institutes and Jewish causes, totaling over $200 million. Although the thriving businessman couldn’t reap an equal level of professional success in his personal life as he has divorced four times so far in his life, his track record in the business sphere stands as a testament to his accomplishments as one of the world’s most influential businesspersons.

In September 2017, Ronald Perelman was named as one of the “100 Greatest Living Business Minds” by Forbes magazine.

Early Life: Childhood, Education

He was born Ronald Owen Perelman in Greensboro, North Carolina, United States, on January 1, 1943, as the son of Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman. Theirs was a Jewish family, and he was brought up in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania. His grandparents were Litvak immigrants.

With family members, Ronald managed the American Paper Products Corporation. His father, Raymond, eventually left the company and purchased the structural steel manufacturer, Belmont Iron Works.

In 1962, Ronald completed his education at Cheltenham High School in Wyncote, Pennsylvania. He learned the fundamentals of business from his father, as he regularly sat in meetings of his father’s company by the time he turned 11 years old.

Ronald first attended the Villanova School of Business before transferring to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania after one semester. It was at Wharton School that he majored in business and earned his MBA in 1966.

Professional Life: Entrepreneurial Career

During his first year at Wharton, Ronald and his father acquired a Brewery for $800,000. Three years later they sold that same Brewery for $1.8 million, netting a profit of $1 million. The father and son duo continued buying struggling businesses, improving the most important aspects of such businesses, before selling them for a healthy profit.

In 1965 Ronald married Faith Golding who he had met a couple of years back while taking a cruise to Israel. A real estate and banking heiress, Faith was already worth an estimated $800 million (in today’s figures) personally at the time they got married.

In 1978, after he had resigned from his position at his father’s company, Ronald borrowed funds from his wife to purchase Cohen-Hatfield Jewelers. He soon sold off the company’s retail locations and reduced the business to concentrate exclusively on wholesale. These moves earned him around $15 million within the first year of acquiring the business. In 1980 he paid $45 million for a licorice and chocolate distributor, MacAndrew & Forbes, which eventually became his longtime holding company. He sold off the chocolate assets and took the company private in a deal worth $95 million in 1984. Through MacAndrew & Forbes, the business guru went on to acquire and sell numerous businesses in a wide range of industries.

Notable early acquisitions included New World Entertainment, Pantry Pride supermarkets, Consolidated Cigar Holdings Ltd, Compact Video, and Technicolor Inc.

Personal Life: Family, Marriages, Children, Private Interests

In 1965 Ronald married Faith Golding who he had met a couple of years back while taking a cruise to Israel. A real estate and banking heiress, Faith was already filthy rich at the time they got married. The couple ended up adopting three children, Hope, Steven, and Josh, before their biological daughter, Debra, was born. They divorced in 1984.

Ronald got on with his life and tied the knot with Claudia Cohen, who, in 1990, gave birth to his daughter, Samantha. The couple divorced in 1993 and the businessman married Patricia Duff in 1995. Their union resulted in the birth of a daughter named Caleigh in 1996. They divorced that same year. Ronald was married to his fourth wife, actress Ellen Barkin, from 2000 to 2005.

Since 2010, Ronald has been married to his fifth and current wife, Anna Chapman. They have two children together.

Asides from his successful businesses and his controversial affairs, Ronald Perelman is also known for his expensive art collection. For many years, he owned a valuable and extremely impressive collection of art that was valued at $8 billion at its peak. He has sold off many pieces from possession in recent years. His collection at times has included works by Cy Twombly, Gerhard Richter, Ed Ruscha, Mark Rothko, Francis Bacon, Jasper Johns, and many more.

Ronald Perelman Net Worth: Salary, Income Sources, Real Estate

As of this writing, Ronald Perelman’s net worth is estimated at $4 billion. He is mostly known as an American businessman and investor whose holding company MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings Inc., has benefited in many immeasurable ways. He has investments in various industries including those dealing with comic book publishing, camping supplies, banks, makeup, cars, television, groceries, cigars, licorice, and more. At various times back in the 1980s, Ronald was referred to as the wealthiest person in the United States. In the past decades, he had a net worth that has been as high as $20 billion. However, his fortune took a massive hit in the year 2020 due to the COVID-19 crisis, and he was left with $4 billion after dropping from $14 billion before 2021.

The Chief Executive Officer of one of the world’s leading diversified holding companies “MacAndrews & Forbes”, this billionaire has earned the reputation of being ranked amongst the richest people in America. His huge net worth made him the owner of many properties and pricey assets which include a helicopter, two private jets, two luxury yachts, a lavish estate in the Harbour Island, and his plush estate “The Creeks” in Georgica pond worth $12.5 million