Jacobs is the chairman and chief executive of QXO, Inc., the largest publicly traded roofing materials distributor in the US. Before acquiring the roofing supply business via a tender offer in 2025, Jacobs led five public companies each valued at more than $1 billion, including the Greenwich-based freight company XPO, Inc.
The majority of Jacobs' fortune is derived from his 69% stake in QXO, Inc., the largest publicly traded distributor of roofing, waterproofing and complementary building products in the US, according to its website. Jacobs owns shares directly and through Jacobs Private Equity, a family holding vehicle, according to the 2025 proxy statement and Form 4 filings to January 2026.
About half of Jacobs' QXO stake is in the form of convertible preferred shares, which come with a guaranteed quarterly dividend. These shares are valued on an as-converted basis, with no premium assigned to their dividend rights. The remainder of Jacobs' holding in QXO is in the form of warrants with variable exercise prices. The aggregate exercise prices on Jacobs' warrants are accounted for with a separate liability.
Jacobs owns about 2% of XPO Logistics, a supply chain business he founded in 2011. He holds shares directly and through Jacobs Private Equity, according to the 2025 proxy statement.
GXO Logistics, a contract logistics provider, became publicly traded in 2021 after it was spun out of XPO. Jacobs continues to hold a 1.5% stake in the company directly and through Jacobs Private Equity, according to the 2025 proxy statement.
RXO Inc. was spun-out of XPO a year later, becoming a publicly traded freight brokerage and delivery provider in November 2022. Jacobs holds a 1.5% stake in the business directly and through Jacobs Private Equity, according to the 2025 proxy statement.
The value of his cash investments are based on an analysis of dividends, insider transactions, asset sales and taxes. It includes his share of proceeds from the sale of companies that Jacobs previously co-founded and sold, including United Rentals and United Waste Systems.
Jacobs owns about $140 million of real estate, based on property records and local county assessors' tax appraisals through 2025. He also has a private art collection worth over $60 million.
Brad Jacobs was born in Providence, Rhode Island on Aug. 3, 1956. He left prep school during his junior year, without a diploma, after being recruited by Bennington College in Vermont, according to a July 2014 profile by Bloomberg News. He later transferred to Brown University in Rhode Island, and left without getting a degree.
He co-founded Amerex Oil Associates Inc., a New Jersey-based oil brokerage firm, and served as its chief executive until the firm was sold in 1983, according to a January 2012 article in trade magazine DC Velocity. He moved to England in 1984 and founded an oil trading company before moving back to the US, where he founded United Waste in 1989, with the aim of combining local garbage collectors. Eight years and 250 acquisitions later, he sold the company for more than $2 billion, according to the Bloomberg profile.
He founded construction equipment rental company United Rentals in 1997 and took it public the same year, before resigning as chief executive in 2003 to seek new investment opportunities, according to a Sept. 30, 2003 Bloomberg News report.
In 2011 he turned to the logistics industry, investing $135 million through Jacobs Private Equity for a majority stake in Express-1 Expedited Solutions. He later renamed the business XPO Logistics, replaced the board and became chief executive.
A slew of acquisitions helped build XPO into one of the world's 10 largest transportation companies, according to its website. In 2021, he spun-out the company's contract logistics division into a new publicly traded company, GXO Logistics. A year later, he did the same for the freight brokerage and delivery arm, which became publicly traded RXO Inc.
In April 2025, Jacobs closed an acquisition of Beacon Roofing Supply through QXO, Inc. in a deal valuing the business at about $11 billion, according to an April 2025 Bloomberg News report.