Nelson Bunker Hunt, Texas oil baron who lost much of his fortune, dies at 88

August 12, 2024

Nelson Bunker Hunt, a Texas wheeler-dealer once reputed to be the world’s richest man, who controlled international oil fields and, for a time, much of the world’s silver market before losing his wealth in a spectacular downfall in the 1980s, died Oct. 21 at an assisted-living facility in Dallas. He was 88.

He had Alzheimer’s disease, a brother, W. Herbert Hunt, told the Associated Press.

Mr. Hunt, often known as Bunker, was born into one of the country’s great fortunes, amassed by his father, H.L. Hunt, an eccentric oil wildcatter, gambler and a self-made billionaire.

Father and son worked together until parting ways in the 1950s. Bunker Hunt acquired his father’s business acumen, as well as his fierce anti-communism, religious fundamentalism and a suspicion of lawyers, bankers and the government.

Another trait he inherited was his father’s knack for thinking big. Bunker Hunt ran through a $250 million inheritance looking for oil before coming upon a spectacular find in Libya in the late 1950s. In partnership with BP, he owned 8 million acres of Libyan petroleum fields that produced vast amounts of crude oil — and money — through the 1960s. At one point, Mr. Hunt had a fortune of as much as $16 billion, making him perhaps the richest person in the world.

In the early 1970s, however, Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi nationalized the country’s oil fields, and Mr. Hunt’s effort to recover his wells proved futile.

With his biggest source of wealth shut off, Mr. Hunt bought farmland in the South, coal fields in the West and a sugar-beet processing company. He purchased $12 million worth of Greek and Roman coins.

He bought 2,500 square miles of Australian pastureland and owned as many as 1,000 thoroughbred horses, which were stabled around the world.

“Although he sometimes came off as a fat, squinty-eyed bumbler,” Harry Hurt III wrote of Mr. Hunt in “Texas Rich,” a 1980 book about the Hunt clan, “he was sharp and crafty and gifted with the same mathematical mind his father had. He also had extraordinary bursts of creative vision.”

In 1973, Mr. Hunt launched his boldest move yet when he and a younger brother, W. Herbert Hunt, began to buy large quantities of silver, priced at about $2 an ounce. Mr. Hunt feared that rising oil prices could lead to a worldwide financial collapse. According to Hurt, the family biographer, Mr. Hunt was also acting on his evangelical Christian faith, believing that a looming apocalypse would render paper currency worthless.

In 1979, the Hunt brothers amassed between $2 billion and $4 billion in silver holdings, at least on paper. By some accounts, the Hunts owned as much as half the transportable supply of silver in the world.

The sharp rise in silver prices led to widespread speculation. People sold their silverware and candlesticks to cash in on what proved to be an illusory boom. Burglaries rose as thieves broke into houses, looking to steal silver.

In a four-month period in 1979 and 1980, the price of silver jumped from $9 an ounce to more than $50, causing federal oversight agencies to step in. By that time, Mr. Hunt and his brother controlled an estimated $4.5 billion worth of silver bullion.

After being summoned to testify before a congressional committee, Mr. Hunt was asked how much silver he owned.

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“That’s known only to God and to me,” he said. “The Lord isn’t talking, so I won’t, either.”

Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul A. Volcker ordered lending institutions to stop issuing credit to people speculating in precious metals. As a result, the price of silver tumbled from $50 an ounce in January 1980 to $10.80 in March. Brokerage companies that had given loans to the Hunt brothers demanded their money back.

The brothers’ losses were estimated at $1.7 billion, prompting Mr. Hunt to shrug and say, “A billion dollars isn’t what it used to be.”

In 1986, both brothers declared bankruptcy. At the time, Bunker Hunt claimed $100 million in assets and $500 million in debts. It was the country’s largest personal bankruptcy case up to that time.

Nelson Bunker Hunt was born Feb. 22, 1926, in El Dorado, Ark., and grew up in Tyler, Tex. In 1938, his father moved the family into a Dallas mansion that was a replica of George Washington’s Mount Vernon. When H.L. Hunt died in 1974, his estate was worth about $2 billion.

Mr. Hunt served in the Navy during World War II and briefly attended the University of Texas and Southern Methodist University in Dallas before joining one of the family oil businesses.

Mr. Hunt had five brothers and sisters who lived to adulthood. One brother, Lamar Hunt, who died in 2006, was owner of the Kansas City Chiefs football team.

After H.L. Hunt’s first wife died in the 1950s, it was discovered that he had a bigamous marriage that produced four other children. When H.L. Hunt died, a former mistress from Louisiana stepped forward to reveal that there was a third family with four more children.

Eight years after the silver-market debacle, a federal grand jury ruled in 1988 that Bunker and Herbert Hunt conspired to monopolize the silver market. The brothers defaulted on more than $1.5 billion in loans and were ordered to pay more than $100 million in back taxes and other penalties.

In later years, Mr. Hunt dabbled in oil exploration and lived off the proceeds of his father’s original trust. Its value was estimated at $200 million in 2009. Herbert Hunt, with a net worth of $3 billion, is on Forbes magazine’s list of the 400 richest Americans.

Besides his brother, Mr. Hunt’s survivors include his wife of 63 years, Caroline Lewis Hunt; four children; and several other siblings.

After Mr. Hunt declared bankruptcy, the process of liquidation took seven years. He sold his house, his multimillion-dollar coin collection, oil fields in Yemen, cattle ranches in Australia and a bowling alley.

He also parted with more than 500 of his beloved thoroughbred horses. Three of the horses were named Extravagant, Goofed and Overdrawn.

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