L.A.'s richest lose big money

The Business Journal's annual guesstimate of what L.A.'s richest are worth contains a lot of minus signs. The 50 Wealthiest Angelenos collectively lost more than $32 billion, leaving L.A. with just 29 billionaires, the lowest total in five years. Perhaps more striking than those aggregate statistics are specific victims of the financial carnage. Kirk Kerkorian lost $5.3 billion, largely because of the troubles at his Vegas-based MGM Mirage. Sumner Redstone got into a squeeze because of debt problems and wound up losing $5 billion. The new No. 1 is Patrick Soon-Shiong, who made his big money by selling generic-drug maker APP Pharmaceuticals. He's worth $6 billion, according to the Business Journal. As usual, the actual numbers are suspect - short of having access to tax returns, there's no way to know for sure what these people are worth. Those who have their money tied up in public companies are the easiest to estimate, while folks who have complicated - and private - investment portfolios are far more difficult. Anyway, here's the top 10:

1 Patrick Soon-Shiong $6 billion 62%
2 Eli Broad $5.4 billion -22%
3 Kirk Kerkorian $5.3 billion -50%
4 David Murdock $3.7 billion -18%
5 Ron Burkle $3.65 billion 4%
6 David Geffen $3.6 billion -25%
7 Steven Spielberg $2.9 billion -12%
8 Haim Saban $2.8 billion -33%
9 A. Jerrold Perenchio $2.4 billion -26%
10 Tom Gores $2.250 billion -10%