The Business and Investing Life of Billionaire Jay-Z

Shawn Corey Carter, an American rapper and singer known as Jay-Z, married to Beyoncé in 2008 was listed in Forbes as the richest music artist in the world with the Net worth of $1 billion. Unlike other artist, Jay-Z is known a rapper, songwriter, record executive, record producer, but more to it, Jay-Z is an entrepreneur, Investor and businessman. Jay-Z didn’t make a large chunk of his money from writing music and rapping but rather from investing and doing business. The 22 times Grammy award winner has said it times without number that he wants to invest and loves to invest. In this post, I will be taking you Jay-Z’s investments that made him a billionaire.

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Jetsmarter

In the aviation and transportation industry, a mobile community that connects fliers and aircrafts just like Uber connecting riders and drivers, we could say Jetmarter is the Uber for private jets but this time around, it is for the extremely rich people. Jay-Z invested an undisclosed amount of money into Jetsmarter in July 2015 alongside with Saudi royal family, Wayne Chang and Goldman Sachs Capital partners. The company founded by Sergey Petrossov in 2014 is valued at $1.6 billion. Using the app is free but there is a membership fee that start from $5000 to %15,000 after which a flight from London to Chicago could cost as much as $44,990/seat.

Art Collection

Forbes noted that Jay-Z has art collections worth $70 million which is a good investment for the rich. Now do not forget that buying original copies of books add to the net worth of the rich and it becomes more valuable if the book has the signature of a legend. Jay-Z spend up to 5 million and above on a single piece of art. With art, the value never depreciates.

Roca Wear

Jay-z started the company with Damon Dash and the company produces apparels and clothing and as at 2007, the company was making about $700 million annually as revenue. The company later sold the right to the brand to Iconix brand group for $204 million cash but Jay-Z still holds his stakes in the Roca Wear company.

UBER

Jay-Z seems to like the transport business real well. When Uber was starting, Jay-Z intended to buy equity in the company for $2 million but later sent $5 Million for a larger equity shares but Uber returned the $3 million only leaving him with $2 million invested. Today the investment of $2 million is worth over $70 million.

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Tidal

Owned by Beyoncé, Kanye west, and Kelvin Harris, Jay-Z bought the company for about $56 million in 2015 and flipped 33% of the initial invested for $250 million after 2 year to sprint in 2017. Jay-Z still retains ownership of his company and enjoys sprints collaboration and their customer user base.

40/40 Club

Jay-Z also owns the 40/40 club, a chain of sport bar which was started in New York, which has added to his net worth. You know how people love clubbing at nights and weekend.

D’USSE

Jay-Z in collaboration with Bacardi owns cognac D’USSE. The cognac is growing rapidly and adds up to about $100 million of Jay-Z’s net worth.

Armand de Brignac

The rapper bought this champagne company in 2014 for $200 million. The champagne is a luxury champagne which produces the Ace of Spade Champagne. This investment makes up $300 million of Jay-Z’s net worth.

It is normal to have few failures in investment and one of Jay-Z’s failure is Julep

JULEP

Jay-Z invested $10 million dollar in Julep, a cosmetic startup but in 2014, the company lay off 102 workers after which it filed for bankruptcy in 2018 which means Jay-Z’s invested was lost. The Ups and Downs in investment.

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For a music rapper in business, this is quite cool. Other investment includes $50 million in real estate, and $70 million in his record label.