Early on, Forbes , to whom we are truly indebted for the Rich List concept, listed a DuPont heiress who had been deceased for several years. It is a truism of economic life and investigative journalism that smaller pots of wealth are a whole lot easier to miss than larger ones. Some of the people on our accompanying story probably belong on the list. Over time we'll try to figure it all out. We should also stress that the valuations here are only our own opinion, based on all the information we could gather.
Net worth is defined simply as assets minus liabilities.
Common sense rules of appraisal were applied in valuing that asset. The easiest individuals to assess were those with a big stake in a publicly held company. For those we used stock values as of late September. To some degree, of course, the number is theoretical. Persons on this list with a big stock position, particularly chief executives, would see values plummet if they tried to unload it all at once.