Jim Justice, Deadbeat Republican Governor of West Virginia
James C. Justice II is many things. He is a coal mining billionaire, with an estimated net worth of $1.5 billion. He is the 36th governor of West Virginia. He owns (along with his kids) some 100 companies. He was elected as a Democrat, but switched parties once in office. He is the owner of the Greenbrier, a gaudy 710-room luxury resort near White Sulphur Springs that dates to 1778 and once housed the nuclear fallout shelter of the United States Congress. Justice is 68 years old, 6 foot 8 and weighs 368 pounds. He has a sandwich named after him at the local Arby’s, while at Hardees there hangs a handwritten note: “Hardees Gals—Please take care of Big Jim—A great guy—Donald J. Trump.”
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Since 2016 courts have ordered Justice and his companies to pay more than $10 million to more than a dozen suppliers, workers and government entities. Over the same time, his companies also piled up $13 million-plus in tax liens. He claims to have paid off many of these. Still looming: another $60 million in potential damages in a civil case awaiting final judgment, plus up to $3 million in fines in Kentucky. And then there’s mine reclamation. By federal law, when a surface mine closes, the operator has to restore the landscape. Virginia’s Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy estimates that Justice’s coal companies face $200 million in reclamation liabilities. (Justice claims it will cost closer to $10 million.)
These are sums worth fighting over, even for a billionaire. The entirety of Justice’s empire rakes in some $450 million in annual sales (their number), mostly from mines, farms and the Greenbrier. The biggest chunk: the decades-old Bluestone coal mines, which will extract an estimated 2 million tons this year, fetching in the neighborhood of $270 million. It’s a low-margin affair: Annual profits to the Justice family are probably on the order of $20 million.
Overhead is low, too. “Hard to believe we run everything with a card table and a bucket of chicken,” he says. “It’s not like we have layers and layers of managers like a big giant public company. But it’s not run haphazardly.” In his mind, every asset has to pay for itself. “I’m a believer in the way I try to run things, which is if you have XYZ company and it has an obligation, then XYZ needs to handle that and is not going to run from it.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2019/04/09/the-deadbeat-billionaire-the-inside-story-of-how-west-virginia-gov-jim-justice-ducks-taxes-and-slow-pays-his-bills/amp/
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