Parry-Okeden owns almost 25 percent of Cox Enterprises, a media and automotive services conglomerate. The closely held company is based in Atlanta and controls the third-biggest cable operator in the U.S., which serves about 6 million homes and businesses. The group had combined sales of $21 billion in 2018.
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Parry-Okeden is a granddaughter of James Cox, who founded Cox Enterprises. She owns almost 25 percent of the company; her brother, James Kennedy, owns an equivalent share. They inherited their stake from their mother, Barbara Cox Anthony. Ownership is based on court documents and Cox's disclosure to Bloomberg that internal transactions resulted in equal stakes among the two owner families.
Cox Enterprises had revenue of $21 billion in 2018 with debt of $12.2 billion, according to the company and Bloomberg data. It has three units: Cox Communications, Cox Media Group and Cox Automotive.
Cable company Cox Communications is the third-largest cable operator in the U.S., according to its website, and had revenue of $11.9 billion in 2018, according to the company. It's valued using the average enterprise value-to-Ebitda multiple of three publicly traded peer companies: Comcast, Verizon, and Rogers Communications.
Cox Media Group operates six daily newspapers, 14 broadcast television stations and more than 60 radio stations and had revenue of $1.6 billion in 2018, according to information provided by the company. Its valuation is based on the average enterprise value-to-Ebitda multiple of five publicly traded peers: EW Scripps, New York Times, Gannett, McClatchy and Sinclair Broadcast and is discounted by 15 percent.
Cox Automotive is a provider of car sales software technology. It had revenue of $7.5 billion in 2018, according to information provided by the company. Cox Automotive is valued on the average enterprise value-to-Ebitda multiples of three publicly traded peers: KAR Auction Services, CarMax and Penske Automotive.
Parry-Okeden's 25 percent share of corporate-level debt is included as a liability.
Joanna Coker, a Cox group spokesperson, provided revenue figures in April 2019 without providing further comment on the net worth calculation.
Blair Parry-Okeden is the granddaughter of James M. Cox, who founded Cox Enterprises after buying the Dayton Evening News in 1898. Cox became a politician, serving first as an Ohio state representative, then as governor. In 1920, he ran for the U.S. presidency as a Democrat, losing to fellow newspaper publisher Warren G. Harding.
Following his death in 1957, Cox's two daughters, Anne Cox Chambers and Parry-Okeden's mother, Barbara Cox Anthony, took control of Cox Enterprises, which had diversified into television and radio. Chambers became the chairwoman of the company's Atlanta Newspapers division, which owned the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Anthony's husband, James, took the top position in the company.
Parry-Okeden's brother, James Kennedy, began working at Cox Enterprises two years after graduating from the University of Denver in 1970. He started out as a newspaper production assistant and worked his way up to general manager. In 1985, he was made vice president of Cox Newspapers. He was appointed chairman and CEO three years later. Today, Cox Enterprises operates dozens of periodicals, television stations and radio stations as well as one of the largest cable systems in the U.S. and multiple auto marketing technology platforms online.
In 1977, Parry-Okeden married Australian Simon Parry-Okeden, with whom she has two sons. The couple has since divorced. Parry-Okeden still resides in Australia, tending to the land holdings her late mother began to acquire in the 1970s.