Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Meet Randal J. Kirk, Southwest Virginia's first billionaire
The company's founder and chief executive stands to make a boatload when his ship comes in.
The Roanoke Times | File 2004
Randal J. Kirk
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Welcome to the billionaire's club, Randal J. Kirk.
The announcement Tuesday that New River Pharmaceuticals will be acquired in a deal worth approximately $2.6 billion likely had many shareholders seeing green.
Chief among them being Kirk.
As part of the deal, New River Pharmaceutical's founder, chairman and chief executive officer will be selling his shares in the company, netting approximately $1.46 billion and making him Southwest Virginia's first billionaire.
It's a title Kirk has been moving toward for years.
The June 2006 issue of Virginia Business magazine lists Kirk as the 12th-richest Virginian, with a net worth of $700 million.
The windfall from the sale of New River Pharmaceuticals will bring his net worth to more than $2 billion, making him the state's second-richest resident and putting him on par with media mogul Ted Turner and venture capitalist William Hearst III.
The list of companies that brought Kirk this 10-figure fortune is long.
But before the businesses and board seats, there was a Monopoly board.
It was then, in games with his father and brothers, that some of Kirk's first financial gambles were made.
"He probably would bet a little more bravely than the rest of us," Kirk's father, Joe Kirk, told The Roanoke Times in 2004.
Those who know him now say Kirk's decision making still bears that trademark confidence.
The son of an Air Force man, Kirk grew up in various parts of the country before graduating from what was then Dublin High School in Pulaski County. After high school, Kirk took a job as a car and motorcycle salesman and, still working, enrolled part time at then Radford College. He graduated from Radford in 1976 and later earned a law degree from the University of Virginia.
In 1983, Kirk joined John Gregory to found General Injectibles and Vaccines, a Bland County-based next-day supplier of medical supplies to doctors.
The company became successful in the late 1980s, and in 1994, GIV spun off King Pharmaceuticals, a Bristol company that manufactured drugs that GIV distributed.
Soon after, Kirk and Gregory split, with Kirk retaining control at GIV and Gregory at King.
A 1999 profile of Kirk in RU, the magazine of Radford University, described GIV with Kirk at the helm as a "powerhouse in the pharmaceuticals industry with annual sales in the $118 million range."
In 1998, Kirk and his ownership team sold GIV for $65 million cash and deferred payments of $25 million.
Some of that money likely went into New River Pharmaceuticals, where Kirk has served as chairman of the board since 1996 and president and chief executive officer since 2001.
In 1999, Kirk formed Third Security, a Radford-based investment management firm. Five years after its founding, Third Security joined with Carilion Health System and the Virginia Tech Foundation to create NewVa Capital Partners, a private equity/venture capital fund designed to support entrepreneurs who are either already operating in Southwest Virginia or willing to relocate to the region.
In addition to businesses of regional note, Kirk has played roles in dozens of other companies, including Scios Inc., Clinical Data Inc. and Harvest Pharmaceutics Inc.
And Kirk, who owns a 232-acre farm in the Belspring area of Pulaski County, has also left his mark in the realms of higher education and politics.
In 1999, he gave $1 million to Radford University to establish the Zylphia Shu-En Kirk Endowment, which is used to fund a Mandarin language curriculum and student travel to China.
In addition to this donation, which remains the largest outright gift Radford has ever received from an alum, Kirk has served on the board of directors of the Radford University Foundation, Inc. since September 1998 and on the school's board of visitors since July 2003. He was elected rector of the board in September 2006.
According to the Virginia Public Access Project, Kirk, who has called himself an independent, has donated a total of $637,000 to candidates and political committees since 1996. A breakdown of donations to candidates, state party committees and leadership committees shows most of that money was split almost evenly between the two political parties, with $306,000 going to Republican candidates and committees and $305,000 going to Democrat candidates and committees.
The single largest beneficiary of Kirk's political donations was Republican Mark Earley, who received $150,000 from the businessman when he made a gubernatorial bid in 2001.
A telephone call to New River Pharmaceuticals requesting an interview with Kirk was not returned Tuesday.
Staff writer Paul Dellinger contributed to this report.
