Taylor owns about 16 percent of Cox Enterprises, a media and automotive services conglomerate. The Atlanta-based business is closely held and controls the third-biggest cable operator in the U.S., which serves about 6 million homes and businesses. The group reported combined revenue of $21 billion in 2018.
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Taylor owns 16 percent of Cox Enterprises, a closely held media conglomerate. She received the stake in December 2013 after her mother, Anne Cox Chambers, dissolved a trust that held 49.4 percent of Cox. 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 the company's website. It had revenue of $11.9 billion in 2018, according to information provided by 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, among other assets, and had revenue of $1.6 billion in 2018, according to its website and 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 KAR Auction Services, CarMax and Penske Automotive.
Taylor's 16.3 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.
Margaretta Taylor is the granddaughter of James M. Cox, who built a U.S. newspaper chain after buying the Dayton Evening News in 1898. He became a politician, serving first as an Ohio state representative, then as governor. He ran for the U.S. presidency as a Democrat in 1920, losing to fellow newspaper publisher Warren G. Harding. He gave each of his daughters, Anne and Barbara, 49.4 percent of the company. Taylor, born in 1942, is one of Anne's three children and inherited her stake in 2013 when Anne distributed her Cox shares to her three heirs.
Today, Cox Enterprises is run by Taylor's cousin, James Kennedy. The company operates dozens of periodicals, TV stations and radio stations as well as one of the largest cable systems in the U.S. and multiple auto sales online marketing ands software divisions.
Taylor has two children, Amanda and Alexander, who is one of three board of directors of Cox Enterprises. She had three grandchildren as of a December 2013 filing with a court related to the distribution of her mother's equity in the company.