50 Wealthiest: Sumner Redstone #6

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50 Wealthiest: Sumner Redstone #6
Wealthiest Angelenos: Sumner Redstone

NET WORTH: $4.4 billion +5%

LAST YEAR: $4.2 billion

AGE: 88

RESIDENCE: Beverly Hills

SOURCE OF WEALTH: Broadcasting, movie theaters

THE MONEY: CBS stock has risen substantially over year, increasing value of his 45 million shares by $400 million, but his 41 million Viacom shares went down, tempering gains. Salary and bonuses for the chairmanship at both companies topped $41 million.

BUZZ: At 88, Redstone looks slow and shaky at public appearances. When he announced he wouldn’t attend Viacom’s annual shareholder meeting, it sparked rumors of declining health, but he quickly rescheduled and flew to New York.

He was immortalized in March with a star on Hollywood Boulevard. His three-minute speech described a life’s journey from Boston’s cobblestone streets to Walk of Fame. “I am now successful, but I must tell you, though, that my global businesses at Viacom and CBS at times have been in peril,” he said, apparently in reference to the financial crisis in 2009 that forced him to sell nearly $1 billion in stock to cover debt obligations.

The Harvard law graduate took over family’s movie theater chain, National Amusements, in 1967. He leveraged that asset into a controlling share of Viacom in 1986 and acquired CBS following year. The companies split in 2006.

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