Richard Rainwater

Richard Edward Rainwater (June 15, 1944 – September 27, 2015) was a billionaire American investor and philanthropist. With an estimated net worth of $3 billion, he was ranked 211th on the Forbes 400 in 2015.

Between 2009 and his death in 2015, he suffered from progressive supranuclear palsy, a rare disease involving neurodegeneration. During his lifetime, Rainwater donated over $380 million to charitable causes and left nearly all of his estate to his charitable foundation. and, according to family lore, his father was part Cherokee, which accounts for his last name.

Rainwater graduated from R. L. Paschal High School in 1962. In 1968, he earned a Master of Business Administration from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Rainwater eventually transformed the Bass family fortune from $50 million into $5 billion, amassing $100 million for himself by the time he started investing his own capital in 1986.

In 1989, at the request of Peter Ueberroth, Rainwater invested along with Rusty Rose and George W. Bush to acquire the Texas Rangers from Eddie Chiles; Rainwater owned a 9% interest.

Also in 1989, he acquired 20% of the Staubach Company for $1 million.

In 1992, he founded Mid Ocean Limited, a provider of casualty re-insurance that was sold to XL Group.

In 1990, he co-founded Crescent Real Estate with a $110 million investment; it acquired 15 million square feet of office space in Houston and Dallas when prices were low, became a public company via an initial public offering in 1994, and was acquired by Morgan Stanley in 2007. Rainwater often visited Canyon Ranch and acquired the spa via Crescent Real Estate.

In the late 1990s, when oil was trading at $12/barrel, Rainwater invested $100 million in energy stocks and $200 million in oil futures contracts. He saw the peak oil phenomenon as an investment opportunity after reading Beyond the Limits, a 1992 book that detailed the consequences of a rapidly growing world population.

In 1999, he invested in the Pebble Beach Golf Links along with Clint Eastwood.

Personal life Relationships Rainwater's first marriage, to his high school sweetheart, Karen, ended in divorce in October 1991, after 25 years. They had three children: Matthew, Todd, and Courtney. At that time, he took a year off. Most of the time, he lived apart from Moore. He and his wife then bought a house in Charleston, South Carolina.

Hobbies Rainwater was a fan of The Road Less Traveled, a spiritual book by M. Scott Peck. Bush was criticized for favoring policies that benefited Rainwater's investments. Rainwater also donated $100,000 to the 2010 Florida gubernatorial election campaign of Rick Scott, who oversaw HCA Healthcare, a major Rainwater investment.

Health In 2009, Rainwater was diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy, with a few years to live. Rainwater spent over $20 million on research trying to find a cure. In 2010, he was awarded the Arbuckle Award at Stanford University. In accepting the award, he began to cry, showing the effect of his disease on his emotions. That year, he made his last public appearance. In March 2011, a court declared him incapacitated, and his youngest child, Matthew, became his legal guardian. Rainwater died on September 27, 2015.

By the time he died, Rainwater had donated more than $380 million to organizations working for the benefit of higher education, at-risk children, and research associated with neurodegeneration. He left nearly all of his estate for charitable purposes, primarily through the Rainwater Charitable Foundation. Rainwater also left $5 million to UT Austin for the study of American music. 1996 - Kappa Sigma Man of the Year. 2010 - GSB Alumni Association's 2010 Arbuckle Award