Little Caesars co-founder Marian Ilitch is the third-richest self-made woman in the U.S., according to a new Forbes list.
Ilitch has an estimated net worth of $6.9 billion, Forbes reported on Tuesday. Most of that wealth likely comes from the Little Caesars pizza restaurant chain, which she co-founded with her late husband Michael Ilitch in Garden City, Michigan, in 1959. Little Caesars brings in an estimated $5 billion in annual systemwide sales, Forbes estimated.
Ilitch, 90, took the reins as chairwoman of her family’s holding company Ilitch Holdings, which owns Little Caesars, after her husband died in 2017.
Growing up, Ilitch refilled napkin dispensers and salt and pepper shakers in her father’s restaurant, according to Ilitch Holdings’ website. As an adult, she worked in retail and as a reservation clerk for Delta Air Lines before getting married and becoming a full-time mother. The couple invested their family savings to open the first Little Caesars location, the website says.
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Little Caesars opened its first franchised location in Warren, Michigan, in 1962, and grew rapidly from there: It opened its 50th location seven years later, the company’s website says. It has thousands of locations worldwide, with roughly 80% of them franchise-owned, according to the company.
Other parts of the Ilitch family’s wealth come from their investments in the city of Detroit. Ilitch and her husband bought the Detroit Red Wings for a reported $8 million in 1982. Her husband also bought the Detroit Tigers from Dominos Pizza founder Tom Monaghan for a reported $85 million in 1992.
The couple purchased the Fox Theater, located in the heart of the city, in 1987 — and spent $12.5 million restoring it, according to the Detroit News. And Ilitch owns Detroit’s MotorCity Casino Hotel, first investing in it and then buying out her partners for $525 million in 2005, according to ESPN.
Some of the Ilitches’ efforts to invest in the city sparked controversy. The family promised a $200 million development around Little Caesars Arena, which opened in September 2017 — but some locals were skeptical the investment actually helped residents, The Guardian reported in October 2018.
Ilitch has generally avoided the spotlight throughout her adult life, as did her husband. Notably, Michael quietly helped pay rent for civil rights icon Rosa Parks during the 1990s, after Parks moved into an apartment in downtown Detroit, the Sports Business Journal reported in 2014.
“It’s important that people know what Mr. Mike Ilitch did for Ms. Rosa Parks because it’s symbolic of what he has always done for the people of our city,” Damon Keith, a former circuit judge on the 6th U.S. Court of Appeals who connected Parks with Michael, told the publication.
“You don’t find people like Mike and Marian often, who want to help when they’re needed,” Keith said to the Washington Post in February 2017.
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