David H. Murdock
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
David Howard Murdock (born 1924) is an American businessman. Forbes estimates he is the 214th richest person in the world, with a net worth of 4.7 billion US Dollars. A high-school dropout, Murdock was drafted by the U.S. Army in 1943.
In 1985 he took over the nearly bankrupt Hawaiian firm Castle & Cooke, which owned pineapple producer Dole Food Company. He developed Castle & Cooke's real estate portfolio into residential and commercial properties, and turned Dole into the world's largest producer of fruits and vegetables. Dole generates more than 135 million US Dollars in free cash flow a year.[citation needed]
He married Tracy Murdock in 1999, ex-wife of Fashion Designer Bijan.
Murdock is a US citizen. He has been divorced three times. He had three children, with his first wife, but two are now deceased.
More recently Murdock has helped contribute to the redevelopment of a 5.8 million square-foot factory complex in Kannapolis, NC in to a biotechnology research center known as the North Carolina Research Campus.