Richard Rainwater: The Billionaire and His Battle

A few weeks ago I read a story about Richard Rainwater and his battle with a potentially fatal disease. Rainwater is probably most famous for managing the investments of Bass family. The Bass family earned most of their money though oil and then diversified into investments. According to an article in Fortune, in 1988 the Bass family was the fourth richest family. The family is responsible for the Sundance Square in downtown Fort Worth, Texas, and the Bass Performance Hall. Rainwater helped the Bass family amass enormous wealth. From the period of 1970-1986 Rainwater turned $50 million into $5 billion or around a 26% annual return. In the process Rainwater himself was able to create a fortune for himself. In 2011, Forbes listed his net worth at $2.3 billion. All of this is now in the past as Richard Rainwater is faced with incurable and fatal brain disease.

Rainwater has a disease known as progressive supranuclear palsy or PSP. The disease itself is very rare but fatal. The average life expectancy is around four and half years. In trying to do something about his disease Rainwater organized his own medical and research team trying to try to come up with some solutions. These days Rainwater has around the clock nursing care and his speech has become incomprehensible.

In addition to all of this, there will no doubt be an issue with Rainwater’s estate. Rainwater planned to give most of his money to his own charitable foundation. He plans to leave each of his children $5 million although one of his sons already has $50 million. Rainwater’s wife Darla Moore who was a former Chemical Bank executive will receive approximately $60 million (this was decided by Darla picking a random figure out of baseball cap). There will be no doubt there will be an estate battle here.

The tragic thing however is how an energetic billionaire can rapidly transform into someone who needs 24 hour care help. Although, the odds don’t look good for Rainwater hopefully with him self-financing his own disease may be able to benefit other people or at the very least shed light onto PSP which seems to be related to dementia and Alzheimer’s. I had been hoping that Rainwater would publish a memoir but now I think that is out of the question given his condition. Money at this point doesn’t matter to someone like Rainwater. For Richard Rainwater his most scarce resource is time.