Pa. Senate Candidate Oz Reports At Least $100 Million In Assets | Florida News
By MARC LEVY, Associated Press
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Before giving up his entertainment career to run for the U.S. Senate, Mehmet Oz — the famed heart surgeon best known as host of daytime television show “The Dr. Oz Show” — amassed assets worth more than $100 million, including homes, stocks, life insurance and ties to his in-laws’ tree-cutting empire.
Oz on Wednesday night filed a financial disclosure form required of all Senate candidates that has a long list of investments – more than 400 individual accounts, businesses or valuable assets – that safeguard the finances of a man who said he invested $10 million in his campaign in Pennsylvania.
Oz has valued his assets between $104 million and $422 million, according to a tally by the Philadelphia Inquirer, a wide range resulting from the Senate’s demand that every asset be valued within a certain dollar bracket. If elected, he would be one of the wealthiest members of the Senate – and possibly the wealthiest.
He said he made around $10 million in 2021, almost all of it from his TV show host salary and ownership of the show’s parent company.
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Oz isn’t the only multi-millionaire in Pennsylvania’s seven-person Republican primary field.
Former hedge fund CEO David McCormick has yet to file a financial statement. Another wealthy candidate, Carla Sands, filed a public declaration of assets last year, valuing more than 50 accounts or properties between $35 million and $152 million.
For Oz, his filing shows at least $11.5 million — and possibly much more — in non-public shares of Asplundh, the tree-trimming business owned by his wife’s family. It lists at least $6 million in non-public stock in convenience store chain Wawa Inc. and at least $5 million in non-public stock in travel agency Five Star Travel Corp.
His tens of millions of dollars in stock includes millions in shares of Amazon, Microsoft, Sharecare and Google’s parent company Alphabet.
Oz lists two homes in Cliffside Park, New Jersey, overlooking Manhattan, which he values at more than $1 million each — including the one where Oz lived for a few decades before deciding to run for the Senate — plus another house in suburban Philadelphia valued at $1 million or more.
There’s also his vacation home in Palm Beach, Florida, which Oz values between $5 million and $25 million, and a cattle farm in Okeechobee, Florida, valued at $1 million or more. He estimates the value of the cattle at between $250,000 and $500,000.
Other assets include life insurance policies worth millions and interests in numerous commercial properties, including apartments in New York and properties on Tremont Avenue in Boston and on Clearwater Beach Island in Florida.
Follow Marc Levy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/timelywriter.
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