The skinny on the fat wallets of L.A.’s 50 wealthiest.
Eli Board
NET WORTH: $6.3 billion +7% LAST YEAR: $5.91 billion
AGE: 77 RESIDENCE: Los Angeles
SOURCE OF WEALTH: Homebuilding, insurance
THE MONEY: Solid year for savvy philanthropist and civic leader, whose timely buys of gold a few years ago continued to boost diversified investment portfolio that includes First Republic Bank and auction house Sotheby’s. His large contemporary art collection has appreciated in current revival of global art market.
BUZZ: After months of speculation, L.A.’s best-known venture philanthropist confirmed in August the building of new downtown museum for his art collection. Hopes ambitious $100 million project, expected to open in 2013 next to Walt Disney Concert Hall, for which Broad was also major donor, will pump new life into Grand Avenue Project. Ambitious downtown revitalization initiative largely put on ice during recession. Broad’s contemporary collection ranges from Jasper Johns to feminist photographer Cindy Sherman. Extensive enough not only to fill new museum but is lent nationwide and exhibited at LACMA’s Broad Contemporary Art Museum.
In June, signed pledge formulated by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates calling for billionaires to pledge more than half their wealth to charity. Broad and his wife, Edythe, plan to go one better, donating up to 75 percent of their wealth to favorite causes. Broad Foundations already have invested more than $2 billion in arts, scientific and medical research and education, with museums, business schools and medical research institutes named for couple coast to coast. In recent years, has funded stem cell research institutes at UCLA and USC.
Son of Lithuanian immigrants helped build two Fortune 500 companies from ground up over five-decade career. Born in Bronx but raised in Detroit, started out as certified public accountant. After making first fortune with Kaufman & Broad Home Corp. (now KB Home) in 1960s, bought Sun Life Insurance Co. of America for $52 million in 1971 and transformed it into retirement savings king SunAmerica. Sold to insurance giant AIG in 1998 for $18 billion in cash and stock. Has hung on to only $10 million of what was a $1.7 billion stake in AIG prior to financial crisis.
