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The founder of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (nasdaq: GMCR - News) Robert Stiller debuted among the 400 Richest Americans this year at no. 331, with a net worth of $1.3 billion. But he has lost a bundle in recent weeks. We now estimate his net worth has fallen below $1 billion. The stock started to slip below $100 in late September, and now trades at close to $60, much of that drop coming in just the past 8 trading days. The selloff was triggered by hedge fund rock star David Einhorn, who dissed the stock at the Value Investing Congress on Monday October 17. He told the audience that day he’d gone negative on the stock due to weakness in its products and poor transparency. It was another wild day of trading for the stock today. It plunged as much as 7% earlier, falling below $60 for the first time in seven months, after T2 Partners'Whitney Tilson apparently said in an interview with CNBC that he believed SEC investigators, already looking at the firm, might find accounting fraud. It recovered some of that loss late in the day and ended trading at around $61.50, down nearly 5%. Easy come. Easy go for Stiller. The entrepreneur became a billionaire literally overnight in March when the value of his Green Mountain stake perked up 42% in one day. That jump came just after his Vermont coffee company announced a strategic relationship with Starbucks (nasdaq: SBUX - News)in which Green Mountain, also the owner of Keuring Single-Cup brewing system, would make, market and sell Starbucks and Tazo tea K-Cups. Even after the recent drop, the stock is still up significantly for the year. Stiller, who has most of his fortune tied up in Green Mountain, put into sell 2 million shares for $222 million on August 4, but he doesn’t appear to have sold any yet and told Forbes soon after that he’d take his time. He also upped his stake in Krispy Kreme Doughnuts and is now the largest individual shareholder in the retail chain. Stiller, who retired as CEO in 2007 but remains the group's chairman, got his start selling E-Z Wider cigarette rolling paper in the 1970s. He sold out in 1981, pocketing $3.1 million. He used some of that cash to buy a coffee store near his ski condo in Sugarbush, Vermont; he later switched from retail to manufacturing, roasting his Green Mountain coffee for big customers like ExxonMobil. These days, business is getting a big boost from its Keurig Single-Cup brewing system, which is being used by Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts, but it is also starting to face new competition and scrutiny. The company will announce fiscal year 2011 financial results on Wednesday, November 9. Follow me on Twitter, http://twitter.com/#!/luisakroll For more Forbes recent coverage of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, see these articles below:
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