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Grizzly Bulls’ Billionaires Index

⬅ # 84 Gennady Timchenko|# 86 Vladimir Potanin ➡

# 85 John Menard Jr 

$24.3B

Real Time Net Worth
as of 5/10/2024
$28.2k (0.00%)

# 85 John Menard Jr 

$24.3B

Real Time Net Worth
as of 5/10/2024
$28.2k (0.00%)
OccupationFounder, Menard
Source of WealthHome Improvement Stores
Age84
ResidenceEau Claire, Wisconsin
Marital StatusMarried
Children6
EducationBS, University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire
Age-Adjusted Net Worth$4.79B
John Menard Jr
John Menard Jr
United States
Net worth: $24.3B

Self-Made Score 

Wealth History

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Biography

Overview

John Robert Menard Jr. was born on January 22, 1940, in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, to John Robert Menard Sr. and Rosemary.
He is the oldest of eight siblings in a Catholic family with German, French-Canadian, and Norwegian roots.
Menard attended Eau Claire Regis High School and graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire with a degree in business and a minor in psychology.
In 1958, 20 years before Home Depot launched, Menard started a construction business, specializing in pole buildings.
He decided not to work for IBM after graduation and continued with his own small farm construction business.
Menard has been married three times, with his third wife, Faiha Obaid, since 2008, and has six children.
In 1997, he faced legal issues when caught illegally disposing of hazardous waste, resulting in a $1.7 million fine for him and his company.
The IRS ordered Menard to pay $6 million in back taxes in 2013 for allegedly mischaracterizing $20 million as salary, not dividends.
Menard has been involved in conservative causes and donated to political groups associated with the Koch brothers.

Business Ventures

Menard opened his first hardware store in 1964, and as of 2021, his company, Menards, owns 335 stores and 12 distribution centers.
Menards stores, competing with Home Depot and Lowe's, are concentrated in the middle of the U.S., from Wyoming to Ohio.
He ousted a former investment partner, Stephen Hilbert, in 2013 for mismanaging assets and resources.
Menard is known for his strict control over the business, requiring top executives to punch a time clock every morning.
He has a pronounced hostility towards organized labor, imposing a ban on hiring anyone who had ever belonged to a union and implementing strict rules for managers.

Motorsports Involvement

Menard has been involved in racing for nearly 40 years and sponsored the winning car at the 2019 Indy 500.
His son, Paul Menard, raced in the NASCAR Cup Series for 16 years, winning the 2011 Brickyard 400.
Menard owns an engine shop in the UK that produced engines for successful racing teams, including winning the 1997 and 1999 Indy Racing League championships.
Menards sponsors cars in various racing series, including Team Penske in NASCAR Cup Series and JR Motorsports in NASCAR Xfinity Series.

Philanthropy

In January 2008, Menard donated $15 million to support Eau Claire's Luther Midelfort Hospital for a new emergency services department.
In 2015, he donated $10 million to support the Eau Claire Area YMCA, helping replace the LE Phillips Tennis Center with the John and Fay Menard YMCA Tennis Center.
In 2019, The Menard family donated $5 million to the Drug Enforcement and Policy Center at Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law, supporting research, engagement, and student enrichment.

How long would it take you to become as rich as John Menard Jr?

If you started with $10,000 and invested an additional $500 each month at a 44.01% CAGR, it would take you 5 years to reach John Menard Jr's net worth of $24.3B.

Is this realistic? It depends how closely the VIX-TA-Macro Advanced model performs to its history in the future. Since Grizzly Bulls launched on January 1, 2022, it's returned 40.45% compared to 10.08% for the S&P 500 benchmark.

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John Menard Jr is very wealthy, but what's stopping you from reaching that same level of success? As summarized in our five fundamental rules to wealth building, becoming wealthy in a modern capitalist economy is not complicated. There's actually only three variables:

  1. Your starting capital
  2. Your earnings after expenses
  3. The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of your savings

Most people start with zero or very little, so if you weren't born into wealth, don't fret! The majority of the fortunate folks listed in our Grizzly Bulls’ Billionaires Index came from middle class or lower backgrounds. The most distinguishing characteristic of the group is their ability to consistently earn a high CAGR on their savings.

Every billionaire has a unique strategy to achieve high CAGR. For John Menard Jr, Home Improvement Stores is the primary source. Whether you choose to invest your savings in your own businesses or the businesses of others is not as important. The salient piece of the puzzle is ensuring that your hard-earned savings are generating sufficient CAGR to reach your long term goals.

Most people simply invest their money in index funds and call it a day. There's nothing wrong with this approach, but it guarantees relative mediocrity. To achieve greatness, you need to invest your money to earn higher than average returns. In the long run, better investors will always finish ahead of better earners.

Source: Grizzly Bulls reporting

Methodology: Grizzly Bulls' Billionaires Index is a daily ranking of the world's billionaires and richest people. Grizzly Bulls strives to provide the most accurate net worth calculations available. We pull data from public equity markets, SEC filings, public real estate records, and other reputable sources.

The index is dynamic and updates daily at the close of U.S. stock market trading based on changes in the markets, economy, and updates to Grizzly Bulls' proprietary algorithm of personal wealth calculation. Stakes in public companies are tracked daily based on the relevant closing prices of the underlying securities. Additionally, stakes in private companies, cash, real estate, and other less easily valued assets are updated periodically through careful analysis of insider transactions, comparable public company sales / EBITDA multiples, etc.

Edited by: Lee Bailey