Coatesville-area woman makes Forbes list
A Chester County resident has made the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans in the nation.
WEST CHESTER >> A Chester County resident has made the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans in the nation.
Mary Alice Dorrance Malone, the largest shareholder of the Campbell Soup Co. and one of only a dozen billionaires in Pennsylvania, made Forbes’ list released this week, as she has many times in the past.
She has a net worth of just over $3.5 billion, according to Forbes’ 34th annual ranking of the world’s billionaires. She placed 239th on the list and is the wealthiest person in the Philadelphia area.
Malone, 70, sits on Campbell’s board alongside her billionaire brother, Bennett Dorrance. Their grandfather, John T. Dorrance Sr., invented the condensedsoup formula that transformed the company in 1897. The family has roots in the horse country outside Unionville.
Malone is the largest shareholder of the Campbell
Soup Company, where she sits on the board, along with her brother, Bennett Dorrance.
The Forbes 400 richest Americans are worth a record-breaking $2.96 trillion, up 2.2 percent from 2018. Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos kept his spot as the richest person in America for the second year in a row, despite parting with a quarter of his Amazon stake in a recordsetting divorce settlement earlier this year. He clocks in at $114 billion, down from $160 billion a year ago.
His ex-wife, Mackenzie Bezos, joins the list for the first time at No. 15, with a $36.1 billion fortune. Bill Gates came in second, the same rank as last year, but the gap between him and Bezos has narrowed dramatically, to just $8 billion.
Besides MacKenzie Bezos, 18 other newcomers joined the ranks, including Tim Sweeney, whose video game company Epic Games is behind the wildly popular Fortnite; private equity dealmaker Orlando Bravo, who is the first Puerto Rican-born billionaire; and
Anthony Wood, founder of streaming technology firm Roku.
The minimum net worth needed to be part of the exclusive club is unchanged from last year at $2.1 billion; the average net worth of a Forbes 400 member has risen to $7.4 billion, up $200 million. At these heights, a record 221 American billionaires, ranging from Michael Jordan and Jay-Z to Sheryl Sandberg and Kylie Jenner, failed to make the cut.
Malone is often seen at equestrian sporting events, and she owns estates and performance centers in Pennsylvania and Florida. She is the president of Iron Spring Farm, a horse breeding and training company with properties in Pennsylvania and Florida.