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19. to 21. Forrest, Jacqueline, and John Mars
John Stillwell – WPA Pool/Getty Images
John Mars owns the Mars candy empire along with siblings Forrest and Jacqueline.
Net worth: $28.6 billion each
Age: 84, 76, and 80
Country: US
Industry: Candy
Source of wealth: Inheritance; Mars Inc.
Siblings Forrest, Jacqueline, and John Mars inherited a stake in the iconic candymaker Mars Inc. when their father, Forrest Sr., died in 1999. The notoriously private trio co-own but don’t actively manage the maker of M&M’s and Milky Way bars, which their grandfather started in 1931 as a confectionary business in his kitchen in Tacoma, Washington.
In 2008, Mars Inc. branched out from chocolate to gum, when it acquired the Wrigley Jr. Co. for $23 billion. Since then, it’s delved into pet food, buying Iams and two other brands in 2014 from Procter & Gamble for close to $2.9 billion.
Together the three siblings run the Mars Foundation, which gives primarily to educational, environmental, cultural, and health-related causes. In March 2015, John Mars was made an honorary knight by Queen Elizabeth II.
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