Hunt is the owner and chairman of Hunt Consolidated, an oil and gas producer and one of the largest closely held companies in the U.S. The Dallas, Texas-based business also has operations in Peru and Iraqi Kurdistan. Hunt also owns ranches through Hoodoo Land Holdings and commercial real estate in Texas via Hunt Realty.
Ray Hunt's net worth of $5.26B can buy ...
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Hunt's fortune is based on his ownership of Hunt Consolidated, a closely held group with interests in energy, real estate and other diversified investments. It's one of the largest closely held companies in the U.S., according to its website.
U.S. production of 12.8 million barrels of oil equivalents and 15.1 million cubic feet of natural gas are based on data compiled by Bloomberg and WellDatabase. Revenue of about $820 million is calculated using the trailing 12-month benchmark prices as of Jan. 1, 2019 and the enterprise value-to-Ebitda of three public peers.
Hunt owns a 60% stake in the Iraqi Kurdistan oilfield, Ain Sifni. It's valued based on its daily production of 19,000 barrels, oil prices as of May 2019 and the average transaction value-to-revenue multiple of four transactions of similar oilfields in 2018 and 2019. The calculation assumes a 20% royalty to the government of Kurdistan, and a 20% political risk discount is applied.
Hunt owns minority interests in Peru's Camisea field. Revenue is derived as detailed in the footnote available to Bloomberg Professional subscribers and compared against the enterprise value-to-Ebitda of Targa Resources, EQT and Kinder Morgan.
The value of Peru LNG is based on the company's 2017 financial statements and the average enterprise value-to-sales and enterprise value-to-Ebitda of three publicly traded peers, Transportadora de Gas del Sur, China LNG Group and Oil Search. A 20% discount for country risk has been applied.
Hunt owns hundreds of acres of ranch land in Texas, Wyoming and Utah. Market values for 2018 are determined using five of the ranch's six county assessor records. One of the county's records aren't available to the public.
Ann Obeney, a Hunt spokeswoman, said he declined to comment on his net worth.
The youngest son of a man once considered to be the richest man in America, Ray Lee Hunt has been stewarding his father's Hunt Oil since taking over as chairman in 1974. In the four decades since, he has discovered one of the world's largest oil fields in Yemen, built up hundreds of thousands of acres of leaseholds in the Gulf of Mexico and Texas, and served as chairman of Southern Methodist University and the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank.
When Hunt was born in 1943, the Hunt oil empire was already one of the world's largest. His father, Haroldson Lafayette "H.L." Hunt, began in the oil business in the early 1930s, buying up leases in East Texas after learning someone had hit a gusher in the region. He turned it into one of the largest family-owned oil businesses in the U.S. He also built a large family, having been a bigamist, with each of his three families unbeknownst to the other. In the decades after his death in 1974, public battles ensued over the trusts he created for his grandchildren, while two of Ray's half-brothers, Bunker and Herbert, unsuccessfully tried to corner the silver market.
Ray has avoided the controversies of his extended family, building Hunt Consolidated into one of the largest closely held oil producers in the U.S., according to IHS Herold data annually published in the Oil and Gas Finance Journal. Three sisters, Ruth, Helen and Swanee derive income from the company, but have no voting equity, according to Swanee's autobiography and corroborated by Texas corporate documents.
Two years after taking over Hunt Oil in 1976, and 18 years after his first job at the firm, Hunt discovered oil in the North Sea. That site, the Beatrice field, produced over 177 million barrels and led to a pattern of Hunt prospecting for oil in regions thought to be dry. In 1984, he hit his largest discovery, in Yemen. The jackpot went on to produce more than 150,000 barrels of oil per day and ultimately unlocked about 10 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. In 2000, Hunt joined a syndicate to operate Peru's vast Camisea gas fields and a related pipeline and LNG business. The next year, Hunt acquired two Canadian companies, one of which held leases to almost 400,000 acres off the Gulf of Mexico. In 2007, Hunt reached agreement with the government of the autonomous Kurd region of Iraq to develop its oil reserves. Over the years, Hunt diversified into stock and venture capital investments, including biotechnology and U.S. commercial real estate.
He and wife Nancy Ann, his college sweetheart, are well-known supporters of SMU and Dallas charities.