J. Joe Ricketts
REAL TIME NET WORTH — as of 5/6/17
$1.67 B
Joe Ricketts has made a fortune by letting other people pick stocks. His company, TD Ameritrade, revolutionized the brokerage industry by bringing discounted online trading to the masses. Ricketts, the son of a Nebraska carpenter, started working as a janitor’s assistant in third grade. Eventually, he graduated Creighton University and began a career as a stockbroker. In 1983, he launched his own firm, Ameritrade, which merged with a small online brokerage twelve years later. The combined company went public in 1997, then grew even larger with a $2.9 billion acquisition of TD Waterhouse in 2006. Today TD Ameritrade executes roughly 400,000 trades per day, bringing in over $3 billion in annual revenue. Ricketts retired from the board in 2011 and now spends his time focusing on political and philanthropic giving. His family are the majority owners of the Chicago Cubs, who won the World Series in November 2016 after a 108-year drought.
Joe Ricketts Net Worth:J. Joe Ricketts is an American businessman who has a net worth of $1.6 billion. J. Joe Ricketts was born in Jackson Hole, Wyoming in July 1941. Ricketts graduated from Creighton University in 1968. He and a few partners formed First Omaha Securities in 1975. First Omaha was a retail securities brokerage firm that became TD Ameritrade. In addition to being a founder he was also the CEO and chairman of TD Ameritrade until he retired from their board in 2011. Ricketts has also founded High Plains Bison in 2004 which is a natural bison meat retailer. They are the official bison vendor of Wrigley Field in Chicago. He founded The American Film Company in 2008 which produces films such as The Conspirator in 2010. He founded DNAinfo.com in 2009 which is a digital news service. Joe’s family acquired a 95% controlling interest in Wrigley Field and Major League Baseball team the Chicago Cubs in 2009. They also acquired 20% of Comcast Sportsnet Chicago. Joe’s son Tom Ricketts is the Cubs chairman and his other children Pete, Todd, and Laura are all on the board of directors. Joe has been involved in politics starting the independent organization Taxpayers Against Earmarks and establishing The Ending Spending Fund. He is also a philanthropist who established the Opportunity Education Foundation. Joe married Marlene Ricketts in 1963.
Source:
1. forbes