Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

The Secretive Cargill Billionaires And Their Family Tree

Cargill Image via Wikipedia

W.W. Cargill founded Cargill Inc. back in 1865 as a small grain storage company. Today the agro-giant is the largest private company in the world, with nearly $120 billion in revenue and 130,000 employees in 63 countries.

The secretive Cargill family still owns 88% of the company, but the wealth has passed down through three and four generations now. Part went to W.W.’s son Austen, whose two children both died in 2006. Margaret, Austen’s daughter, gave her one-sixth share of the company to charity. James, Austen’s son, passed his wealth on to his three children: James Cargill, Austen Cargill, and Marianne Liebmann each own one-eighteenth of the family share and thus are ongoing members of The Forbes 400.

The other side of the family comes from the children of W.W.’s daughter, Edna (who married John MacMillan). Her son Cargill MacMillan Sr. died in 1968. His three children, Whitney MacMillan, Cargill MacMillan, and Pauline MacMillan Keinath are also members of the Forbes 400, with one-ninth of the family share each. Meanwhile, Cargill Sr.’s brother John MacMillan Jr. had three children: Marion, John and Whitney. Marion MacMillan Pictet retains one-ninth and makes the list with her cousins. Her two brothers, John Hugh and Whitney Duncan, died in 2008 and 2006, respectively. Their children each own further fragmented pieces of the family fortune.

See the entire family tree below. To the best of our knowledge, this is how the clan and the money breaks down.

#4 Cargill-MacMillan family Follow (7) 2014 America's Richest Families Net Worth $43 Billion Fortune Founded 1865 Source Of Wealth Cargill Inc. Company Headquarters Minneapolis, MN Cargill-MacMillan family on Forbes Lists #4 America's Richest Families (2014) The Cargill family owns an estimated 88% stake of Cargill, the largest private company in America, making six family members individual billionaires. Their $137 billion (revenues) agribusiness firm sells food, processes crops, trades commodities, sources ingredients and provides financial risk management. W.W. Cargill, the son of a Scottish sea captain, started the company as a small grain-storage business in 1865 at the close of the American Civil War. He got rich as railroads expanded westward at the end of the century, turning the Great Plains into America's bread basket. Cargill's son-in-law, John MacMillan, took over the business in 1909, and Cargill remained family-run until 1995, when John's grandson Whitney MacMillan stepped down as CEO. The Cargills live extremely private lives, many of them on ranches and farms in Montana.