Cargill family members added to world’s richest list amid rising food prices

• Three of Cargill‘s largest individual shareholders — who are members of the Cargill-MacMillan family that gave the US agribusiness company its name — have been added to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which lists the 500 richest people in the world.
• Siblings Austen Cargill, James Cargill II, and Marianne Liebmann — who are great-grandchildren of William Wallace Cargill, who founded the company in 1865 — have seen their personal fortunes grow by a fifth since the start of this year, to reach about $5.4 billion each.
• Other agrifood billionaires featured in the recently released Bloomberg index include seven members of the Mars family and five members of the Walmart-owning Walton family.

Why it matters:

Agribusiness majors like Cargill have seen earnings soar over the past couple of years as commodity prices have risen, due to the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and other factors. Louis Dreyfus Company reported an 82% bounce in profits for 2021, according Bloomberg; while Archer-Daniels-Midland has seen its valuation surge over 25% over the last two months. The UN’s global Food Price Index hit an all-time high last month.

Other members of the Cargill-MacMillan family appearing on the Bloomberg list include Pauline Keinath and Gwendolyn Sontheim Meyer, also great-grandchildren of William Wallace Cargill, with $8.06 billion each.

According to Bloomberg, the Cargill-MacMillans were the world’s 11th richest family as of last year, with an estimated collective fortune of $51 billion. The extended Cargill-MacMillan family controls about 87% of the company which shares their name, deriving an estimated $115 billion in annual revenues from their stakes, Forbes reports.