Ty Warner
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Harold Ty Warner (born September 3, 1944) is a wealthy American toy manufacturer and businessman. He is Chairman, CEO, sole owner and founder of Ty Inc., which manufactures and distributes Beanie Babies. In 2005 Forbes estimated his net worth at approximately $4.4 billion - down from a peak of $6 billion - still making him one of the wealthiest people in the world.
He attended Kalamazoo College in Michigan but dropped out after a year and moved to Hollywood to commence a career in acting. He enjoyed little success as an actor and returned to Chicago.
In Chicago, he started working for plush toy maker Dakin, where he became an accomplished salesman - employing clever tactics to influence the decisions of buyers in large stores. After nearly two decades at Dakin and a long sabbatical in Italy, Warner returned again to Chicago. He mortgaged his home and invested his life savings into founding Ty Inc. in 1986.
Using his extensive contacts in toy retail, Warner was quickly able to realize what would sell and how to sell it. At one Atlanta Toy Fair, he obtained orders for 30,000 toys in one hour. In 1993, Ty Inc. launched Beanie Babies. By 1996, they had become a cult phenomenon delivering Warner tremendous wealth. Beanie sales reputedly eased after 2000, although the company is believed to continue to be strongly profitable. At the peak of the Beanie craze, the privately owned Ty Inc. is believed to have earned over $700 million in profits in a year.
Warner's business strategy was novel. He did not spend money on advertising. He selectively limited production of certain Beanie Babies to encourage collectors. He did not distribute Beanies at large department stores to encourage the perception that Beanies were an elite offering. As a result of these strategies, collectors would enthusiastically await and buy up new products with a secondary market emerging where some Beanies sell for $1000 or more. At their peak of popularity, some Beanies reached a price of $5000, despite selling for as little as $5 in stores. There have been books published on collecting Beanies and hundreds of websites about Beanies were formed on the internet.
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[edit] Investments in Hotels and Resorts
Warner has diversified beyond toys with significant investments in hotels, property and golf courses. Ty Warner Hotels and Resorts include the Four Seasons Hotel in New York, the Sandpiper golf course, the Four Seasons Resort in Montecito near Santa Barbara, California, the San Ysidro Ranch also in Montecito, the Kona Village resort in Hawaii purchased in July 2004 and the Las Ventanas al Paraiso Resort in Los Cabos, Mexico which was acquired in September 2004. In 2005, Warner added the historic beachfront Miramar resort and Rancho San Marcos golf course to his portfolio. He purchased the Miramar for $45 million. One thing Mr. Warner has realized in his resort business is that it pays to get out and "press the flesh" unlike the ultra private manner in which he operates his Beanie Baby empire.
Warner has an extremely contentious relationship with many of his Montecito neighbors about the Coral Casino which is a private oceanfront club and is also part of his Santa Barbara Biltmore property. He wants to open it up to non-members; however, a number of current members are adamantly against that and as a result there've been a multitude of issues raised - which many feel are frivolous - in the approval process for the renovation plans he wants to do, according to Jeff Bellamar, an industry consultant. On November 28, 2006 Ty Warner announced he was selling his recently acquired Miramar Hotel property, citing a personal bias against him by the Montecito Association, that made it too difficult to develop it.
At the peak of Beanie Babie-mania Warner's net worth was around $6 billion but with subsiding interest, Forbes estimates his net worth to be closer to $4.4 billion in 2005. However his real estate has appreciated nicely and the 4-year $145 million renovation of his Santa Barbara Four Seasons Biltmore is now complete.
[edit] Personal
While he has never married, Warner is sometimes said to live in a relatively humble home in Oak Brook, Illinois. However, he also owns a lavish blufftop compound in Montecito, California where Forbes says he spent $27 million purchasing an adjacent estate so that a new neighbor couldn't build next to his ever-expanding property. Some of the highest priced real estate in the world is in Montecito, such as Oprah Winfrey's $51 million estate, the historic $40 million Cima Del Mundo estate and oceanfront half-acre properties selling for up to $30 million. Montecito is often overlooked because it's not recognized as a city, and that's fine with the 10,000 residents of this affluent beach community. Median real estate prices in Montecito exceed Manhattan and San Francisco.
[edit] Philanthropy
He is a generous philanthropist, with donations of $6 million to the Andre Agassi Foundation for underprivileged children in Las Vegas and $3 million for the creation of Ty Warner Park. He also donated $8M for the creation of the Ty Warner Sea Center in Santa Barbara, California and gave a gift of 1 Million Beanie Babies for children in Iraq. Warner also recently donated more than $300 million worth of soft toys for a Red Cross blood drive.
[edit] Privacy
Warner is believed to diligently guard his privacy, he rarely grants media interviews and Ty Inc. does not even list its telephone number. Some speculate this is actually designed to increase interest in Beanie Babies as many websites speculate about every aspect of new product announcements and various details of Beanies. Every week, he responds to questions in the Ask Ty section of a Beanies fan site[1].
In 1999, he opened the books of Ty Inc. to the public which revealed the company had larger sales and profits than Hasbro and Mattel combined, and took out an advertisement in the Wall Street Journal proclaiming Ty Inc. the largest toy business in America.
