Oil Tycoon’s Well-Timed IPO Boosts Fortune by $1.4 Billion

George Kaiser’s Excelerate Energy begins trading on the NYSE
It controls 20% of the world’s fleet of specialized LNG ships

George KaiserPhotographer: Brett Deering/WireImage/Getty Images

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By Tom Maloney and Sergio Chapa

April 13, 2022 at 1:15 PM UTC

Updated on

April 13, 2022 at 4:17 PM UTC

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George Kaiser, whose parents fled Nazi Germany for the Oklahoma oil patch, was already a billionaire before Russia invaded Ukraine and threw the global energy market into turmoil.

Still, a well-timed initial public offering of his Excelerate Energy Inc. has added $1.4 billion to his fortune and boosted his net worth to $9.2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Shares of The Woodlands, Texas-based Excelerate were trading at $27.21 at 12:04 p.m. in New York, up 13% from their offering price and valuing the liquefied natural gas company at $2.9 billion.