Rich get richer — even during pandemic

DALLAS — Eight Texas billionaires have increased their worth by more than $1 billion since the pandemic began to impact the U.S. in March, an analysis of Forbes data shows.

The wealth owned by Texas’ richest grew by more than 10 percent from March 18 to June 17, Forbes’ real-time billionaires data indicates.

The Forbes data was publicized by the nonprofit Americans for Tax Fairness and progressive think tank Institute for Policy Studies.

The data excludes three Texas billionaires — grocery store magnate Charles Butt, home builder Donald Horton and real estate investor John Goff — because their March net worth wasn’t available.

The list includes 56 billionaires in Texas who added on average $429 million to their worth since the pandemic began.

In total, the 56 people have made $24 billion in three months time — or nearly twice the historic amount of unemployment benefits paid out by the state to jobless Texans since lockdowns began in March.

Texas billionaires’ wealth grew the fourth most collectively compared to other states.

Billionaires in Texas trailed California, New York and Washington, which also are home to more ultrawealthy individuals than the Lone Star State. But Texas has oil and shale gas.

Lockdowns enacted across the U.S. in March, which drove down demand for oil, combined with price wars, had a devastating effect on the oil and gas industry at the start of the pandemic.

By May, researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas were warning that “economic distress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has sent the Texas economy into a tailspin.”

For the past month, oil prices gradually have recovered, but rig counts have declined and bankruptcy threatens many in the industry.

Almost a third of U.S. shale producers technically are insolvent if crude drops below $35 a barrel, according to Deloitte, highlighting the industry’s acute financial strain.

Despite this, Texas’ billionaires who amassed their fortunes in oil and gas saw the largest growth in wealth. Wealthy oil and gas moguls also far outnumber the billionaires invested in other industries in Texas.

Dell founder Michael Dell’s wealth grew 30 percent in the three months since the pandemic began, leading all other billionaires in Texas. His worth has increased nearly $7.2 billion in that timespan.

Dell is followed by the heirs to Houston pipeline company Enterprise Products Partners L.P. co-founder Dan Duncan’s fortune. Daughters Randa Duncan Williams, Dannine Avara, Milane Frantz and son Scott Duncan’s worth increased more than $1.5 billion combined over three months.

Pipeline magnate Kelcy Warren has made more than $1 billion, while Ray Hunt of Dallas, Sid and Robert Bass of Fort Worth and others have have pulled in hundreds of millions.

Following the Duncan family is Dallas’ Robert Rowling, founder of TRT Holdings, which owns Omni Hotels and Gold’s Gym, who has increased his net worth by nearly $1.4 billion.

Gold’s Gym has filed for bankruptcy since the pandemic began, and hotels have taken a massive hit.