1. Patrick Soon-Shiong – Los Angeles Business Journal

$20.8 billion

down 2%

Soon-Shiong’s portfolio saw a slight drop over past 12 months as the value of
his stake in Culver City immunotherapy firm ImmunityBio shrank. That drop was partially offset by value gains elsewhere, including his stake in the Los Angeles Lakers. Soon-Shiong, 73, a native of South Africa who now lives in Brentwood, came to UCLA in 1983 to pursue a surgical career. He then founded diabetes and cancer biotech firm APP Pharmaceuticals – which sold in 2008 to dialysis firm Fresenius for $4.6 billion – and Abraxis Bioscience, which sold in 2010 to Celgene for over $3 billion in stock and cash. He used the proceeds to set up his Nant family of bioscience companies, which now serves as the backbone of his business empire, including ImmunityBio.

The value of his stake in ImmunityBio plunged by $1 billion in December as a public offering of stock was priced below the current price at the time. His stake took a smaller hit in May as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration rejected ImmunityBio’s application to expand the use of its Anktiva immunotherapy drug to a larger pool of bladder cancer patients. The agency a few weeks later did approve another expanded use of Anktiva for lymphopenia patients. On the positive side, Soon-Shiong’s 4.5% stake in the Lakers turned out to be more valuable than previously thought. Forbes last October had valued the Lakers franchise at $6.4 billion, making Soon-Shiong’s stake worth about $290 million. But in June, the franchise was sold to a group led by Mark Walters, chief executive of Guggenheim Partners and controlling owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers. That transaction valued the Lakers at $10 billion and raised the value of Soon-Shiong’s stake by about $160 million to $450 million.

In 2018, Soon-Shiong acquired the Los Angeles Times and San Diego Tribune from Tronc (formerly Tribune Co.) for $500 million. After some promising years where he invested heavily in expanding the Times’ newsroom and reach, economic realities of the news business hit hard. He sold off the San Diego Union-Tribune in 2023 to Alden Global Capital. He implemented two rounds of layoffs – one in 2023 and one last year – that totaled roughly 190 newsroom positions. As he announced the second layoff round, he said the paper was losing nearly $40 million a year. He implemented another smaller round of layoffs earlier this year – 14 positions, with another 48 newsroom staff members accepting buyouts.

In July, Soon-Shiong announced on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” that he plans to take the Los Angeles Times public through a “Reg A” offering with a maximum limit of $75 million. The plan will allow Soon-Shiong to retain majority ownership of the paper once completed sometime next year.He has raised eyebrows for other actions involving the Times. Last fall, weeks before Donald Trump was reelected as President, Soon-Shiong axed an editorial endorsing the Democratic candidate, then-Vice President Kamala Harris. He also announced he was instituting a “bias meter” to alert readers about the ideological tilt of news stories. More than 20,000 readers dropped their subscription in the wake of that news. Education: He has a bachelor’s degree in medicine from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa; a master’s degree from University of British Columbia; and received surgical training at UCLA. Charitable Giving: The Chan-Soon-Shiong Family Foundation has been very active in improving health care delivery in Soon-Shiong’s native South Africa, including a recent $1.6 million grant to fund vaccine research and manufacturing. In 2017, Soon-Shiong and his wife Michelle Chan were invited by the Smithsonian Museum to be part of the museum’s permanent exhibit, “Many Voices, One Nation.”