Providence Equity CEO named to Forbes 400 list of richest people in America

PROVIDENCE EQUITY Partners CEO Jonathan Nelson has been named to the 2015 Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest people in America. / BLOOMBERG FILE PHOTO/ANDREW HARRER
PROVIDENCE EQUITY Partners CEO Jonathan Nelson has been named to the 2015 Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest people in America. / BLOOMBERG FILE PHOTO/ANDREW HARRER

PROVIDENCE – The CEO of Providence Equity Partners has made the “2015 Forbes 400” list of the richest people in America, sharing space with the likes of No. 1 Bill Gates, the Microsoft mogul worth $76 billion, and No. 2 Warren Buffet, the head of Berkshire Hathaway, worth $62 billion.

Providence Equity Partners’ Jonathan Nelson ranked 342nd on the list for his net worth of $2 billion.

He rose 41 spots from his 2014 rank.

“Once again proving he is not a typical Wall Street billionaire, Jonathan Nelson admitted in 2015 that his Providence Equity Partners is coming off of a string of mistakes,” Forbes wrote on its website.

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Those mistakes, Forbes wrote, include losing $800 million after one its big investments, security firm Altegrity, filed for bankruptcy this year.

“Nelson claims his $40 billion firm is now back on track,” Forbes wrote.

Forbes notes that Providence recently sold the Ironman triathlon series to a company run by Chinese billionaire Wang Jianlin for $900 million, quadrupling its initial investment.

Nelson, 59, a Rhode Island native, studied economics at Brown University and received his MBA from Harvard University. On a personal note, it said Nelson is a widower who has remarried; he also has three children.

Forbes also has named Nelson the richest person in Rhode Island, as part of its 2015 richest person in every state list.

Forbes said admission to the Forbes 400 list started at $1.7 billion, the highest it’s been in the 34 years that Forbes has tracked American wealth. Gates has topped the list for 22 consecutive years, Forbes said. The youngest person on the list is 25-year-old Evan Spiegel, co-founder of the mobile messaging app SnapChat.

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