From Baltimore, only Bisciotti, Davis make Forbes 400
Baltimore only placed two people of the latest Forbes 400 list of richest Americans — two men who started a business together in 1983.
Steve Bisciotti, best known as the owner of the Baltimore Ravens, and his cousin, Jim Davis, founded a staffing firm then known as Aerotek but now called the Allegis Group.
Allegis has become the nation’s largest staffing firm, with $13.4 billion revenue in 2018.
Bisciotti, who resides in Millersville, is ranked 150th on the Forbes list with an estimated net worth of $4.5 billion, which includes $2.75 billion attributed to the Ravens.
Davis, who lives in Cockeysville, is ranked 287th with an estimated net worth of $3 billion.
The cousins’ Redwood Capital Investments is an active investor with significant stakes in Tradepoint Atlantic, the redevelopment project at the site of the closed Sparrows Point steel mill; Erickson Living, a Catonsville-based retirement community operator; as well as auto and RV dealers, alcohol distribution, trailer leasing and propane distribution.
Kevin Plank, the founder and CEO of Under Armour, made the Forbes 400 cover in 2015, but dropped off the list in 2017 as the Baltimore-based athletic apparel brand suffered a slump in sales and its stock price. Forbes currently estimates Plank’s net worth at $1.8 billion, a few hundred million shy of the bottom of the Forbes 400 list.
The richest Marylander is listed as Ted Lerner and his family, whose Lerner Enterprises owns significant real estate in the Washington, D.C., area. The Chevy Chase resident, who also owns the Washington Nationals, has an estimated net worth of $5.1 billion, ranked 128th.
Other Marylanders on the list include Mitchell Rales of Potomac with $4.4 billion, 154th; Bernard Saul II of Chevy Chase with $3.4 billion, 250th; David Rubinstein of Bethesda with $3.2 billion, 275th; and Dan Snyder of Potomac, best known as the owner of the Washington Redskins, with $2.6 billion, 333rd.
For the second year in a row, Forbes included a philanthropy score, ranking the billionaire’s known generosity on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the most philanthropic.
Davis received a philanthropy score of 4, while Bisciotti — the Baltimore region’s richest person — only got a 1.
The philanthropy scoring has been criticized as biased toward those who makes their gifts widely known; some billionaires decline to share information with Forbes.
The richest Americans overall were Amazon’s Jeff Bezos with $114 billion, Microsoft’s Bill Gates with $106 billion, Warren Buffett with $80.8 billion and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg with $69.6 billion. Gates, Buffett and Zuckerberg all received philanthropy scores of 5, while Bezos received a 2.