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. Forbes estimates his net worth at approximately $6 billion making him one of the wealthiest people in the United States.
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 a plush toy maker Daikin where he became an accomplished salesman, employing clever tactics to influence the decisions of "buyers" in large stores. After nearly two decades at Daikin 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 enthusiatically 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.
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 south of Santa Barbara, 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.
Personal
While he has never married, Warner is sometimes said to live in a relatively humble home in Oakbrook, Illinois with long-term girl-friend and former lighting designer Faith McGowen and her daughters Jenna and Lauren Boldebuck until they attended college. Lauren attends the University of Iowa. All three have had some involvement with Ty Inc., designing Beanies. He also owns a lavish home in Santa Barbara California where Forbes says he spent $27 million purchasing some adjacent land.
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, $8M for the Ty Warner Sea Park in California and the gift of 10000 Beanie Babies for children in Iraq.
Privacy
Warner is believed to 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.
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.
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