(April 1): Newsmax Inc’s debut as a public company has given founder and chief executive officer Christopher Ruddy a fortune of about US$3.3 billion (RM14.64 billion) after its shares surged 735%. 

The conservative cable news network sold US$75 million of shares at US$10 each in Monday’s (March 31) initial public offering (IPO). The stock closed at US$83.51 after repeated trading pauses due to volatility. 

Ruddy’s 39.2 million class A shares, owned through a revocable trust, have 10 votes each, giving him control of 81% of the company’s votes. He didn’t sell any shares in the New York Stock Exchange offering.

Ruddy, 60, didn’t respond to a message left with his assistant seeking comment. 

Other investors include Interactive Brokers Group Inc founder Thomas Peterffy, who owns 23 million shares worth US$1.9 billion through Conyers Investments LLC; Sheikh Sultan bin Jassim Al-Thani, a Qatari royal whose investment firm, Heritage Advisors, owns 19.7 million shares; and Vadim Shulman, a Ukrainian industrialist.

Newsmax’s share price gives the company a market value of more than US$10.7 billion. The Boca Raton, Florida-based firm lost US$72 million last year, on revenue of about US$171 million. Fox Corp, which is worth almost US$25 billion and operates competing network Fox News, reported a net income of US$2.4 billion on US$6.5 billion of revenue in the same period.

Rupert Murdoch, who is chairman emeritus of Fox Corp, is worth US$15.2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Ruddy founded Newsmax in 1998 as a conservative news website, after previously working as a journalist at the New York Post and Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. The company launched a cable news channel in 2014. 

The son of a police officer, Ruddy grew up on Long Island, New York. After studying history at St John’s University, he earned a master’s degree in public policy from the London School of Economics. 

He lives in West Palm Beach, Florida, although Newsmax also makes a corporate apartment in New York available to him. 

Uploaded by Liza Shireen Koshy