Billionarie Tilman Fertitta is the star of CNBC’s latest reality TV show Billion Dollar Buyer. It’s half Shark Tank — he looks for small businesses to invest in — and half The Profit where Fertitta dishes out advice at the workplace. He knows business. The Texan (worth an estimated $3.3 billion) is the sole shareholder and CEO of Landry’s Inc., a line of restaurants, hotels and casinos. He opened the first Landry’s in Houston in 1980. In 1993, the company went public (it went private again almost 20 years later).
Landry’s owns more than 500 restaurants including McCormick & Schmick’s, Morton’s The Steakhouse, Landry’s Seafood House, Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. and Saltgrass Steak House. The company also owns the Golden Nugget Casinos (there are five), Houston’s Kemah Boardwalk, and the Tower of the Americas in San Antonio, among other properties. Billion Dollar Buyer airs Tuesdays at 10pm on CNBC.
