Even after losing more than $9 billion over a year and a half period, Oklahoma oilman Harold Hamm, the man who founded and still runs Continental Resources remains the richest man in Oklahoma. He is still sitting pretty as he manages his vast fortune and empire.
Forbes reports the $9.4 billion lost over the past 20 months included the $1 billion he was ordered to give to ex-wife Sue Ann as part of their divorce settlement in Oklahoma County District Court. At the time of the split, Hamm was valued at $18.7 billion and a divorce court judge ordered him to pay 5% of his net work to Sue Ann Hamm. As readers of OK Energy Today might recall, Hamm wrote her a check for $974,790,317.77.
Just months earlier, Hamm’s stake in Continental Resources approached $21 billion as he maintained and still does, a 75.8% interest in the company he founded in 1967.
By January of this year, Continental shares traded at $16 and oil prices were down to about $32 a barrel. But Hamm’s value in the company has rebounded by $6.5 billion and his total net worth is about $10 billion. And 98% of that worth is in shares of his company, explaining how his worth parallels what oil prices do.
