Hello Kitty Billionaire Revealed


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Hello Kitty -- the cute, red-bowed white cartoon cat that is one of the most recognizable franchises in the world -- has crowned a new billionaire.

Shintaro Tsuji, the 85-year-old founder and CEO of Sanrio, was just revealed to be worth more than a billion dollars by the crew over at Bloomberg Billionaires. Soaring sales of Hello Kitty products helped the company stock price double this year. Shintaro controls 1.8 million shares of the stock directly, and even more through his wife Yasuko. Sales for Sanrio were $899 million in the last fiscal year.

Hello Kitty is the Tokyo-based company's most popular character. Sanrio has licensing deals for the character with Walmart (WMT), Zara and luxury crystal maker Swarovski, among others. These days you can find Hello Kitty on clothes, cell phone cases, jewelry, glasses, backpacks, makeup cases, stationary, coffee cups, plush toys, and even airplanes.

All that global licensing is key, says Matt Miller, editor of Bloomberg Billionaires. "They were the first company to really go out there and draw these really cute characters, make sure that they were their intellectual property and then be able to actually monetize them through licensing."

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I would have said there should be a law against that, but then I realized trucks are dumb to start with.  at least for the 99%of the owners who own it and don't use it for anything work related. 

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I would have said there should be a law against that, but then I realized trucks are dumb to start with.  at least for the 99%of the owners who own it and don't use it for anything work related. 

then you have people like me who could use a truck who are basically building a house themselves... I fit anything I can into my car even if it barely fits :rofl:  Heck I can fit an 80" high and 32" wide door in my trunk with the back seats folded down and it fits perfectly with the trunk closed.... people think I'm crazy... I say hey cheaper then owning a truck :laugh:

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then you have people like me who could use a truck who are basically building a house themselves... I fit anything I can into my car even if it barely fits :rofl:  Heck I can fit an 80" high and 32" wide door in my trunk with the back seats folded down and it fits perfectly with the trunk closed.... people think I'm crazy... I say hey cheaper then owning a truck :laugh:

 

Well you're not going to be building a house forever, unless you build, sell build sell and so on :p

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haha yeah, this is year 4 of it though... finish stuff as money comes available...

 

Well once you become a house owner it never stops though, if you ever run out of rooms that needs fixing up and walls that needs changing outside, then you're back into maintenance :)

 

almost done with year two as a house owner :)  Trailers are infinitely more useful than trucks though, good think I have a step father who can do a lot of stuff since I'm not allowed to drive with trailers yet and he has a lot more time than me to help fix stuff like the entire rotten outside wall we just replaced :)

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Well once you become a house owner it never stops though, if you ever run out of rooms that needs fixing up and walls that needs changing outside, then you're back into maintenance :)

 

almost done with year two as a house owner :)  Trailers are infinitely more useful than trucks though, good think I have a step father who can do a lot of stuff since I'm not allowed to drive with trailers yet and he has a lot more time than me to help fix stuff like the entire rotten outside wall we just replaced :)

 

I used to build houses in the past..

 

it is fun to do.. as long as you are doing it right.

 

I like to smell new home smell such as wood scent.

 

Yes the trailer for the tools are useful...  even the trucks with toolboxes on sides and the vans... I know some people who have the vans for their tools.

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