RAY LEE HUNT

Ray Lee Hunt grew up the son of H.L. Hunt, the legendary Texas wildcatter who built one of the great American oil fortunes.

When H.L. died in 1974, Ray and his three sisters inherited Hunt Oil and the remains of General American Oil.

Ray took the operating reins. Two years later, in a move that defined his career, he sent his company into the North Sea and discovered the Beatrice oil field, which ended up producing more than 177 million barrels.

He kept the company private and patient while bigger rivals chased quarterly numbers. He also pushed Hunt into real estate, building landmark Dallas projects.

Today he is executive chairman of Hunt Consolidated, one of the largest privately held companies in America.

The core is Hunt Oil and its parent, Hunt Consolidated, a sprawling private company in oil, gas, real estate, and infrastructure. Because it is private, Ray answers to family, not Wall Street.

The oil business made its name on bold international bets. The Beatrice field in the North Sea was the first.

The most controversial was 2007, when Hunt Oil signed a deal with the Kurdistan Regional Government to drill in northern Iraq, a deal estimated to be worth billions and one that cut against US foreign policy at the time. On the real estate side, Hunt built Reunion Tower and the Hyatt Regency in Dallas and helped redevelop large parts of the city.

The thread is the same. Go where others will not.

Ray Hunt invests like a man who plans to hand the company to his grandchildren. His whole approach is long-term and private.

By keeping Hunt Consolidated out of the stock market, he never has to please analysts or chase a good quarter. That freedom lets him make slow, contrarian bets, like drilling in places most companies consider too risky.

He is willing to be the first big private oil company into a war-torn region if the geology and the price are right. Basically, he treats patience and privacy as competitive advantages.

While the public oil giants flinch, he can move.

The North Sea was the bet that proved Ray Hunt could run his father's company. In 1976, just two years after taking over, he sent Hunt Oil into the British North Sea and hit the Beatrice field.

It went on to produce over 177 million barrels. For a private company to make a discovery like that, while competing against the largest oil companies on earth, was a statement.

It established Hunt Oil as a serious international player and set the template for everything after. Go somewhere bold, do the geology, and drill.

The Kurdistan deal is the one that drew real fire. In 2007, Hunt Oil signed a production-sharing contract with the Kurdistan Regional Government to drill in disputed territory in northern Iraq.

The problem was timing and politics. Ray Hunt was a close friend and major fundraiser for President George W.

Bush, and a US congressional committee found that administration officials knew about the deal even though it cut against official American policy of keeping Iraq's central government in control of the oil. The deal tangled Hunt in accusations of using political connections, and the actual oil results were slow to materialize.

The lesson is that in the oil business, the geopolitics can be riskier than the drilling.

Hunt's philosophy is simple and old-fashioned. Build long-term value and keep it in the family.

As he has said, being in business to create long-term value means long-term is not six months, and it also is not squeezing all the value out of an asset in its first three years. He believes the biggest threat to a family company is not a bad oil price but a bad succession, what he calls the intergenerational management challenge that has killed so many family firms.

So he stays private, plans across generations, and avoids the short-term pressure that comes with public markets. Patience is the whole strategy.

Ray is part of the famously complicated Hunt dynasty. His father H.L.

Hunt had multiple families and more than a dozen children, and the clan has produced billionaires, evangelists, and one spectacular silver-market blowup by Ray's half-brothers in 1980. Ray came from H.L.'s second family with Ruth Ray Hunt.

His full sisters include June Hunt, a Christian broadcaster, and Swanee Hunt, a former US ambassador. Ray himself is the steady one.

He married Nancy Ann right after SMU, raised five children, and kept his branch of the family out of scandal and in control of the business. In a dynasty known for drama, he is the calm center.

Ray Hunt is an SMU man through and through. He graduated from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where he was a University Scholar, served in the student senate, and won the outstanding business student award.

He later chaired SMU's board of trustees and created the Hunt Leadership Scholars Program. For a Texas oil heir, his loyalty to one hometown university is unusually deep.

SMU shaped him, and he has spent decades funding it back.

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