44) Philip Evan Kamins (up arrow)
Age: 63
Residence: Beverly Hills
Source of wealth: Plastics, chemicals
Net Worth: $600 million
Last Year’s Rank: 43
Background: Born in Chicago, his parents divorced when he was 12, and he went to work to support his family. At 16, he took a job with H. Muehlstein & Co., a plastics scrap dealer in Chicago. Later studied business at Northwestern University and moved to L.A. in 1957 as a salesman for Muehlstein. In 1963, he started his own plastics scrap yard, Kamco Plastics, in Sun Valley, and in 1971 changed the company name to PMC Global.
Money Track: Now an international company that manufactures specialty chemicals, foam, film, packaging and plastic products, PMC is one of the biggest manufacturers of plastic-foam products in the U.S. and the tenth largest private company in Los Angeles. At one time Kamins, sole owner of the company, refused a financing offer from Michael Milken. Estimated revenue of $920 million for 1998 represent an 8.4 percent increase over 1997.
Buzz: Publicity-shy Kamins might be sensitive due to repeated fines levied against company over the handling of toxic waste. Several years ago, the firm was fined a record $1.6 million after being accused of illegally dumping waste into city sewers. In 1998 a PMC concern in Chicago was fined $250,000 by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration after an accidental chemical leak created a three-mile-wide acidic haze over the southeast section of the city.
