Stan Kroenke, the owner of the Colorado Avalanche and the Denver Nuggets, became the nation’s largest landowner in December, holding 2.7 million acres of mostly sprawling ranch lands in Texas, Wyoming, Montana, Nevada, and now New Mexico, according to .

His purchase of 937,000 acres of ranchland across New Mexico from the heirs of Henry Singleton, founder of the tech and industrial conglomerate Teledyne, allowed him to vault ahead of John Malone, chairman emeritus of the Liberty Media empire. Malone, who for years sat at the top of the list, dropped to third place with 2.2 million acres.

For anyone comforted when they see the vast Greenland Ranch Open Space when driving between Castle Rock and Colorado Springs, Malone had a big part in preserving that. And this Greenland isn’t for sale.

In between Kroenke and Malone is the Emmerson family, who are behind the lumber and wood products company Sierra Pacific Industries. The family owns 2.4 million acres of timberland in the Pacific Northwest.

Further down on the list is Colorado’s wealthiest resident, Philip Anschutz. The Land Report has him at 198,000 acres. His Overland Trail Ranch in Wyoming spans 320,000 acres, although about half of that represents public lands he operationally controls through federal leases and grazing rights.

Unlike Kroenke, Anchtuz is divesting rather than investing in land. Prior reports had incorrectly listed him as the largest landowner in his native state of Kansas, with 250,000 acres in Baughman Farms. But a representative for Anschutz told the Topeka Capital-Journal in November that those farm parcels, many of which were actually located in southeastern Colorado, had been sold.

And then there is Louis Bacon, a New York hedge fund manager, who owns the Trinchera Ranch and Bianca Ranch near Fort Garland in the San Luis Valley. He purchased Trinchera from the Forbes family in 2007, and they had owned it since the 1960s. Bacon’s Colorado land covers 172,000 acres. It is Colorado’s largest ranch, and most of it is under conservation easements. Other holdings bring Bacon’s total closer to 222,000 acres, according to the Land Report 100.

“They have been buying and owning properties for a long time. They like aggregating land,” Ken Mirr, owner of real estate brokerage , said.

Finding such large parcels is nearly impossible back East and becoming much harder in Colorado. But it remains doable in New Mexico and Wyoming.

From Colorado’s founding, people bought land for the economic use they could get out of it, whether it was to mine minerals or coal, to raise crops and livestock, or to cut timber. Anschutz in some ways reflects that older style of land ownership.

He is building wind turbine projects and raising cattle on his Overland Ranch Trail in Wyoming, and before selling his Kansas and Colorado farmland, he grew row crops on it. Ted Turner, the cable entrepreneur and the nation’s fourth-largest landowner, also has tried to generate cash flow from his land holdings.

He owns the world’s largest bison herd and uses their meat to supply his chain of restaurants called Ted’s Montana Grill. Cattle are common on many of the ranches.

But most of the new breed of buyers are more conservation-minded, purchasing land for land’s sake, even if it means locking up money in an illiquid asset. Raw land can rise in value, but over time, those gains don’t keep pace with stocks, private equity or the original businesses that generated the wealth to begin with.

But land does offer a hedge against inflation, diversification against economic upheavals, and provides a certainty that isn’t available with assets whose value can evaporate in a short time span, like Washington Mutual or Enron. There is also a beauty or aesthetic that comes with large land holdings, sometimes described as “psychic income.”

“We are facing uncertainty with what is going on in the marketplace and in the world. Things are a little unstable. People return to land as a stable form of property,” Mirr said, who said the motivation at times can be comparable to those who purchase fine art and jewelry.

The land holdings of the four billionaires add up to 5.32 million acres. To put that into perspective, they hold more land than that contained within four of the largest national parks — Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon and Glacier.

The square mileage they control would rank as the country’s 41st state, behind New Jersey, and it is comparable to the territory Israel covers.

And this may come as a surprise. Their land holdings are just shy of the span of the 10 counties that the federal government defines as the Denver-Aurora-Lakewood metropolitan statistical area. Metro Denver covers about 1,000 more square miles than all of New Jersey, something to think about on the next layover at Newark airport.

All that is to say, they own a lot of land. And as humorist Will Rogers famously said, “Buy land. They ain’t making any more of it.”

Even Colorado’s newest billionaires aren’t immune to the land bug. Alex Karp, CEO of Denver-based Palantir Technologies, purchased the St. Benedictine Monastery in Old Snowmass in December for $120 million. The purchase included 3,700 acres of Colorado’s most prime land, senior water rights and several monastery buildings.

John Malone, who for years was at the top of the private landholder list, explains what motivated him to devote most of his accumulated wealth to land in his recently released biography “Born to be Wired.”

“You can’t appreciate what a precious commodity open land is until you see it vanish over time. And then one day you look, and it����ap gone. Forever,” he wrote.

Malone describes moving to Denver 50-plus years ago with his wife, Leslie, and falling in love with the beauty of the Rockies, the cowboy culture, the clean air, and the ethic of freedom dominant in the West at the time.

Bob Magness, who hired Malone to run his cable company, hosted him at his Hidden Valley Ranch in the foothills near Golden. The Malones eventually purchased their own spread southeast of Denver. The financial engineer learned how to run a tractor, to plow fields and plant oats, to paint barns and work with horses.

But over the years, metro sprawl kept encroaching on the isolation they were seeking, forcing them to move three times. They always held onto the land. And Malone, who for long stretches outperformed even Warren Buffett in generating returns for his investors, poured much of his family’s net worth into buying more land.

“This pursuit will consume most of the material wealth that Leslie and I have built up in our lifetime, a key reason we formed the Malone Family Land Preservation Foundation. We will designate a vast portion of the 2.2 million acres in six states with a protected status that will ensure it stays natural and utterly undeveloped forever, and I hope to expand this even more,” he wrote.

Mirr said many buyers are motivated by the desire to protect something they consider valuable, to leave a legacy that will last beyond them.

The Trappist monks oversaw their monastery lands in old Snowmass for nearly seven decades, and when their time to say goodbye came, Mirr said one of the brothers told him after the closing, “We don’t own the land, we are custodians and stewards.”

People may buy land, even vast acres of it. And they may enjoy it. But in the end, they never truly own it.

“It’s not like you can take it with you,” Mirr said.

Malone, 84, will become chairman emeritus at Liberty Media, based in Douglas County, and advise management and the board after he steps down on Jan. 1. Liberty Media Board Vice Chairman Robert Bennett, who goes by Dob, will become chairman of that company, while Mike Fries, CEO and vice chairman of Liberty Global, will take on the chairman duties at that company, which is based in London but has executive offices and a large presence in Douglas County.

“Founding Liberty Media and serving as its Chairman has been among the most rewarding experiences of my professional life,” Malone said in a statement. “With the successful simplification of our portfolio in recent years and our operating businesses in positions of strength, I believe it is an appropriate time to step back from certain of my obligations, and I am very pleased to have Dob Bennett, my partner and colleague of 35 years, stepping into the Chairman role.”

Malone added that Bennett has been involved in all the key decisions throughout Liberty Media’s history and said that he plans to remain actively engaged in an advisory role.

“I want to thank John for more than three decades of partnership and mentorship. His legacy as a visionary business leader is without parallel and I am deeply grateful for his confidence,” Bennett said in the release.

Bennett has served as a director on the company’s board since 1994 and served as Liberty Media’s president and CEO between 1997 to 2005. After Malone’s resignation, the Liberty board will have eight directors, five of whom will be independent.

Fries, who has been CEO of Liberty Global since it formed in 2005, said Malone was willing to invest in what was a “small but ambitious” international cable operation in the mid-1990s. It now employs 30,000 people and operates cable systems in six countries.

“I often remind my team that we stand on the shoulders of giants in this industry, and none broader than John’s. His extraordinary wisdom and strategic guidance have been invaluable, and personally, I could not have asked for a better mentor and friend,” Fries said in a statement.

An electrical engineer by training, Malone moved to Colorado in the early 1970s to run TCI, a fledgling cable company founded by Bob Magness in 1968. Malone instilled financial discipline and honed dealmaking skills that brought TCI back from the brink and built it into the country’s largest cable television provider. He earned the nickname “Cable Cowboy” for his pioneering moves and aggressive dealmaking.

Malone’s success helped establish metro Denver as a hub for the cable industry and drew other cable companies and content providers to the region, generating thousands of jobs. He also shaped a cooperative and collaborative model that still guides the cable industry to this day, said Phil McKinney, CEO of CableLabs in Louisville, which Malone founded in 1988 to promote industry innovation.

Malone brought together the leaders of all the major cable companies to work together on new technology and improve the customer experience.

“At that time, he recognized that the industry would strongly benefit from a sustained, long-range integrated approach to research and development — a central organization to monitor, evaluate, report and collaboratively develop technology for the industry.  Today, half a billion people use at least one CableLabs technology every day,” McKinney said.

CableLabs, which was originally based in Boulder, played an important part in establishing that city as a tech hub. The collaborative continues to draw cable industry CEOs serving on its board to Colorado three times a year.

Malone had the same level of vision as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Elon Musk did in their fields, said McKinney, who was the chief technology officer at Hewlett-Packard before joining CableLabs. But he also was “amazingly humble.”

“It is not a game of trying to be the smartest person in the room,” he said.

In 1991, TCI spun off Liberty Media, which focused more on the content of what moved through the cables rather than the hardware. The bulk of TCI was sold to AT&T Broadband in 1999, with other systems ending up with Charter Communications, Comcast, Cox Communications, and Cablevision.

Liberty Media became a holding company that acquired stakes in numerous companies over the years and spun many of them off. Current and past investments include the Atlanta Braves, Formula One Group, Quint, Starz, Sirius XM Holding, LiveNation Entertainment, QVC and HSN or the Home Shopping Network.

Liberty Global, which focuses on acquiring, building and operating cable systems outside the U.S., was another spinoff in 2005. That company in turn spun off Denver-based Liberty Latin America, which provides cable services in 20 countries, and Sunrise Communications AG, which is Switzerland’s second-largest telecom provider.

Malone emphasized cash flow over profits and generated a tremendous amount of wealth for his investors, including himself, across decades. TCI shares had an annual compounded return of 30% between 1973 to 1998, while Liberty Media returned 24% a year on average between 2006 to 2018. Returns have slowed since then.

Malone’s long-term record has triggered comparisons to Warren Buffett, although Malone, who describes himself as having high-functioning autism, has preferred to keep a much lower profile. While he has long helped shape what is in the media spotlight, he has avoided stepping into it.

Liberty Media now primarily consists of two branches: Formula One Group, ticker FWONA, which has a market value of $23.6 billion and Liberty Live Group, ticker LLYVA, which has a value of $8.3 billion.

As of Aug. 31, the company said Malone had 49.5% voting control of the Formula One common stock and 48.9% of the Liberty Live common stock. Forbes estimates Malone has a net worth of $11.1 billion. He owns about 2.2 million acres of land, making him the country’s second largest private land owner, with holdings concentrated in Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, Florida and Maine.

Unlike his business holdings, his land holdings are more focused on conservation and preservation rather than extracting a financial return.

Last month, Malone released an autobiography, “Born to be Wired” that details his years spent transforming television, helping wire the country for the internet, and growing multiple companies under the Liberty Media umbrella.

Kern died Friday, Dec. 13, after being diagnosed a month ago with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer, said Mary Rossick Kern, his wife of 26 years. His illness only lasted 3 weeks.

“It was a shock,” she said, noting that Jerry — as friends and family called him — always spoke of his own father living until 101, when he was celebrated with a birthday dinner at New York City’s famed Rainbow Room. “I used to think, ‘Well, I might not be here. But Jerry will be around.’ ”

Indeed, Kern and his vanilla-and-caramel Havanese, Mikey, were common sights at the Four Seasons Hotel when he and Mary lived there until a few years ago. Kern’s own dogged devotion to deal-making allowed him to seal tense, complex agreements that spanned his and Mary’s restoration of the Colorado Symphony, Kern’s own colorful past as a cable-industry lawyer and , and national nonprofit causes.

The Kerns have for years been significant leaders in the arts community who are widely credited as saving the Colorado Symphony from ruin in 2011, friends and former city leaders said.

“Jerry was a very formidable person, and he made it clear in our first meeting all the reasons he was unhappy with the city,” said Alan Salazar, former chief of staff for Denver Mayor Michael Hancock.

For years, Kern had worked to replace the Symphony’s current home of Boettcher Hall with an upgraded concert venue — in the process butting heads with many others as he tenaciously pursued more favorable deals (and, at one point, floated the idea of moving the organization out of Denver; the Boettcher-upgrade push continues today, friends noted.)

“But I also quickly detected his wry sense of humor and his satirical nature,” Salazar said. “Under the gruff and intimidating exterior, he cared deeply about this city. I appreciated his provocative, East Coast lawyer style. We hit it off in part because we were able to have fun with one another even when we were in conflict.”

Every great city requires a great orchestra, Kern came to believe, despite the fact that he didn’t know Dvořák from Debussy when he first got involved, Mary said.

“The Colorado Symphony deeply mourns the loss of Jerome H. Kern, a visionary leader and advocate for the arts whose impact on our organization will be felt for generations to come,” Symphony officials wrote in a statement provided to The Denver Post. “As CEO and President of the Board, Jerome and his wife Mary’s leadership were instrumental in the survival of the Colorado Symphony during a pivotal period in our history and the organization is forever grateful. Our heartfelt condolences go out to his family, friends, and all who were touched by his remarkable life.”

Kern’s contentious relationship with the city’s arts and political leadership doesn’t take away from his important work. Ginger White Brunetti, who formerly led Denver Arts & Venues, said Kern’s impact continues with the “tremendous” success of the Colorado Symphony.

“He was instrumental in the Symphony’s growth, financial stability and innovative programming,” said White Brunetti, now the city of Aurora’s director of Library and Cultural Services. “Singular in style, he led with a great passion for the art form and a deep appreciation for its talented musicians. His legacy will echo throughout Boettcher Concert Hall and venues across Colorado.”

Kern’s New York accent and unapologetic personality instantly set him apart from most Denverites. He was born in Brooklyn on June 1, 1937, and graduated cum laude from the New York University School of Law, where he was a Root Tilden Scholar and managing editor of the New York University Law Review from 1959 to 1960, Mary said, following his 1957 bachelor’s degree from Columbia University.

As a trustee of the New York University School of Law, he donated $5 million to the Root-Tilden Scholarship program and led a $30 million endowment effort. His success led to the program’s renaming as the Root-Tilden-Kern Scholarship, Mary said.

“Jerry always joked that he blamed me for his (philanthropy),” said Mary. “It was funny, because when Jerry did that big NYU gift, afterward (NYU Law School) president John Sexton would get down on his knees whenever he saw me and kiss my hand and say, ‘We owe it all to you, Mary!’ ”

Kern was vice chairman and a board member at Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI), and architect of the AT&T/TCI merger. He would represent TCI in other high-profile mergers and acquisitions, including the Time Warner/Turner Broadcasting merger, Mary said. Before TCI, Jerry was a senior partner at Baker & Botts, LLP, and the senior corporate lawyer in the New York office. For more than 20 years, he was the principal outside legal counsel to TCI and Liberty Media.

He also served as interim chairman and CEO of Playboy Enterprises, Inc., which he was happy to talk about when prompted, although with many of his anecdotes about that time are unprintable in this publication. He was also founder and managing partner of Enki Strategic Advisors, consultants to the broadband and mobile industry from 2007-2009; and the chairman and CEO of hospitality-entertainment company On Command.

“When I led Theatres and Arenas, as we called it then, Jerry and I were working on reauthorizing SCFD (an arts-funding tax district) and I got to know him very well,” said Jack Finlaw, who serves as president and CEO of the University of Colorado Foundation. “We were both lawyers in the cable business, which was one of the things that bonded us, and we both gave up those careers to focus on new things.”

Kern’s tenacious approach extended to his nonprofit work as his career progressed, Mary said, including founding and chairing the Institute for Children’s Mental Health, and endowing the Mary Rossick Kern and Jerome H. Kern Chair in Endocrine Neoplasms Research at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. He worked as chairman of the Volunteers of America Colorado board, and sponsored the building of the Michael Kern Kitchen, which provides Meals on Wheels to Colorado recipients. In 2002, the Kerns were awarded VOA’s Humanitarian of the Year Award.

Kern retired from his role at Colorado Symphony in 2021, having saved the organization from financial ruin in 2011, and left it with an $88 million endowment, he told The Denver Post at the time. As Mary noted, he did not start out as a classical music fan. But once he identified a goal, his commitment never wavered.

“He very sweetly sat with me through the whole, 20-hour Ring Cycle (opera) at the Met in New York, which was one of the great moments in my life,” she said. “I’m sure he would have rather been at a Broncos game, but he did it — including one show that was six hours. That was true love.”

Liberty Media said Wednesday that Maffei would leave his role when his contract expires at the end of the year and become an adviser. The company’s 83-year-old chairman, John Malone, will be the interim CEO.

“While it����ap never easy to leave an organization as dynamic as Liberty, I am confident that this is the right time,” Maffei, 64, said in a statement.

He was a leading figure in the in 2017 from long-time rights holder Bernie Ecclestone. At the time, Maffei predicted “an enormous opportunity to grow the sport.”

The years since then have seen a boom in interest in F1, in part driven by the success of the Netflix series “Drive To Survive”. That����ap particularly true in the United States, which now hosts three races a year. The Las Vegas Grand Prix is next week.

Liberty Media that it was under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department over denying Andretti Global’s bid to become F1’s 11th team. Maffei said at the time that the company is open to new entrants applying, and potentially being approved, if certain requirements are met.

Liberty Media also expanded into motorcycle racing in April when it worth around $4.5 billion for the MotoGP series.

The Colorado Capitol building has been illuminated by blue and yellow light the last few nights to show support to Ukraine. Gov. Jared Polis has divested state interests from Russia and announced a willingness to accept refugees fleeing Ukraine.

Symbolic gestures have occurred all over the state.

The before a game last week, in a show of support with Ukrainian Kings player Alex Len.

More prominent showings of support have taken place all over the state as people have taken to the streets in backing Ukraine. A rally was held in front of Colorado’s Capitol last week. At the display, people shared messages of anger towards Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Some of the 11,000 Ukrainians who live in Colorado attended.

The conflict may impact oil prices, raising the price drivers pay at the pump. But the ethanol in your car is not the only type impacted. Kroger announced Tuesday that over the weekend, it from its shelves while at the same time sending emergency food assistance to support refugees. Coloradans headed to King Soopers’ liquor store in Glendale may not see the vodkas they’re accustomed to buying.

The University of Colorado says it’s moving to . Meanwhile, United Airlines, which employs nearly 5,000 Coloradans, has and suspended two routes covering India as a result. American Airlines is also avoiding Russian airspace for the time being.

On Tuesday, the United States federal government announced a . The European Union and Canada have made similar moves.

Russia’s state-owned TV station RT (formerly Russia Today) was dropped from the airwaves by DirecTV. Another Fortune 500 company made a big move. Englewood-based Liberty Media, the owner of Formula 1, slated to be held in Sochi this September.

For the latest updates on the Russian war on Ukraine, click here.

The magazine released the 2021 version of its Forbes 400 list earlier this month. The top spot went to Jeff Bezos, with an estimated $201 billion net worth. The No. 400 slot went to Arkansas investment banker Warren Stephens, worth $2.9 billion.

Here are the seven Coloradans who made the list:

Charles Ergen (No. 56, $13 billion): The 68-year-old Ergen, of Denver, is the cofounder of satellite TV provider Dish Network and satellite communications firm EchoStar. His net worth increased from $9.3 billion on the 2020 list.

Philip Anschutz (No. 66, $10.6 billion): The 81-year-old Anschutz, of Denver, has holdings in oil, real estate and media, including the Denver Gazette and Washington Examiner. The 2020 list put his wealth at $10.1 billion.

John Malone (No. 98, $8.4 billion): Malone, 80, was the CEO of TCI, which was acquired by AT&T in the late 1990s. He is now chairman of Liberty Media, whose holdings include the Atlanta Braves. He was worth $6.5 billion in 2020.

Mark Stevens (No. 224, $4.8 billion): Stevens, 61 and of Steamboat Springs, was a partner at Silicon Valley venture capital firm Sequoia Capital. He was worth $3.1 billion in 2020.

Kenneth Tuchman (No. 310, $3.7 billion): Tuchman, of Denver, is the founder and CEO of TTEC, which operates call centers. The 61-year-old hadn’t been included among the Forbes 400 since the late 2000s.

Pat Stryker (No. 340, $3.4 billion): The 65-year-old Stryker, of Fort Collins, is the granddaughter of the founder of medical equipment manufacturer Stryker Corp. The 2020 list put her wealth at $2.5 billion.

James Leprino (No. 358, $3.3 billion): Leprino, of Indian Hills, is the CEO of Leprino Foods, which produces cheese for pizza chains like Pizza Hut and is based in the Highland neighborhood. The 83-year-old’s wealth increased 10 percent from the 2020 list.

While the above are the only individuals on the list that Forbes said reside in Colorado, others are connected to the state.

Nuggets and Avalanche owner Stan Kroenke, for example, is No. 70 on the list at $10.7 billion, but his residence is listed as Electra, Texas. And Denver native Robert F. Smith makes the list with $6.7 billion, but he is also listed as living in Texas.

Native American activists accused Hickenlooper, a former Democratic governor, of engaging in “red face” after from the 2018 spread online. As part of the annual hunt, which dates back to 1939 and historically has involved only white men, hunters are given an “Indian name” and a medicine bag. Winners are presented with a warbonnet and losers wear a woman’s headscarf.

“Gov. Hickenlooper displayed an unacceptable lack of judgement in choosing to participate in this event, while disrespecting indigenous women and appropriating traditional dress of Native peoples,” wrote activist Xiuhtezcatl Martinez in .

After easily winning Tuesday’s Democratic primary, Hickenlooper will face Sen. Cory Gardner, a Yuma Republican, in November. Ammar Moussa, a spokesman for Hickenlooper, says criticisms of Hickenlooper’s participation in the antelope hunt are “deeply disappointing” attempts to misrepresent his respect for Native American people and their traditions. Hickenlooper was the first Colorado governor to apologize for the Sand Creek Massacre, Moussa noted.

“This was a longstanding, traditional hunt,” Hickenlooper on Thursday. “The headdress was placed on my head by the hunt chief, Chief Shoyo. Had I not allowed him to do that, he would have been offended. It was a very complicated situation.” He said he will not go to the hunt again.

Elders in the federally recognized Eastern Shoshone Tribe of Wyoming preside over some elements of the closing ceremony, including the presentation of headdresses. Alejandra Robinson, a spokeswoman for the tribe, said respected elders take part but there are mixed feelings about the ceremony among tribal members.

“I would say most tribal members find it disrespectful to place a warbonnet on a hunt winner — as he is white — but there isn’t a big outcry or huge opposition, probably because it’s been happening for years,” she said. “That’s me speculating.”

One detail that is unclear is whether women at the One Shot Antelope Hunt are still called “squaws,” now considered to be a racial slur. Press reports suggest the term may have been used as recently as 2013, when former Vice President Dick Cheney losers must “dance with an Indian squaw” after the hunt. Organizers of the event did not comment when asked if the word is still used.

“Our people have enjoyed a warm and friendly relationship with the One Shot and we have a lot of fun poking fun at the hunters by giving them official Shoshone Indian names and having the celebration after the hunt where we honor the successful hunters,” said Arlen Shoyo, the Shoshone elder who takes part in the event. The statement from Shoyo was provided by the Hickenlooper campaign.

of “Wyoming Chronicle,” a public broadcasting show, shows Hickenlooper dressed in a pink headscarf and standing next to then-Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead. The two, along with other hunt participants, shuffle their feet alongside female tribal members in an apparent Native American dance.

“It looks like he’s playing along with other non-Native men, making fun of and mocking Native women,” said Crystal Echo Hawk, a Coloradan and CEO of IllumiNative, a nonprofit which combats negative narratives and stereotypes about Natives in media. “It is so deeply hurtful at a time when we are, as Native people, dealing with an epidemic of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls.”

Keith Michael Harper, a member of Democratic National Committee and the first Native American to be appointed a U.S. ambassador, called it “a very bad look” for Hickenlooper on Twitter. And the Association of American Indian Affairs shared criticisms of Hickenlooper on its social media accounts as well.

Hickenlooper’s teams lost the hunt in 2011, 2012 and 2015 but he was on a winning team in 2016 and 2018, according to . His predecessor, former Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter, competed in 2007, 2008 and 2009. Of the past 15 Colorado governors, 11 competed in the antelope hunt at least once.

“I’m a great believer that it is very important to be competitive on the little things, so you can collaborate and work together on the big things,” Hickenlooper told an interviewer during the 2012 television episode, when referring to a long-running rivalry between the governors of Colorado and Wyoming.

Republican Bill Owens, who was in office from 1999 to 2007, was the last Colorado governor to not attend the hunt at least once. He said Monday that his nonattendance was unrelated to the alleged “red face” behavior there.

The Bloomberg Colorado Index, a basket of 60 stocks based in the state, rose 31.8 % in 2019. That beat the 22.3% gain in the Dow Jones industrial average and the 28.9% gain in the S&P 500, but not the 35.2% gain in the Nasdaq composite index.

“What is most extraordinary about this year is where the markets were just 12 months ago,” said Fred Taylor, president of Northstar Investment Advisors in Denver. “On Christmas Eve 2018, the markets were down 20 percent due to fears of higher interest rates and a pending recession.”

Those fears never came to fruition, and over time the major indices rebounded and then plowed forward to record the best showing since 2013.

Leading the charge in Colorado was Zynex, a Douglas County-based medical device maker, that saw a 167.7% gain in its shares on the year. As of early October, the gain had topped 325%.

Zynex makes a prescription-grade device that uses electrical stimulation to relieve pain, which has become a more pressing concern as the nation tries to reduce dependency on opioids.

The company, which had no direct salespeople at the start of 2018, now has 150 and is targeting 400. A much larger sales force has resulted in increased revenues and profits.

“We have been ramping up our sales team over the past year,” said chief financial officer Dan Moorhead. A move from over-the-counter trading to the Nasdaq early in the year also boosted investor interest.

Shares of Vectrus, a Colorado Springs-based provider of supply chain management services, had the next best showing, up 137.5%. Among companies with a market value of $1 billion or more, the leader was Pilgrim’s Pride, a poultry provider based in Greeley. Its shares shot up 110.9%.

Beyond those three, shares of another 14 Colorado companies gained 50% or more in 2019. Big companies with big gains included Liberty Broadband, up 74.6%; Western Union, up 57%; and Liberty Media, up 47.3%.

Some severe declines were masked by the sharp gain in the overall index, including eight Colorado companies that had their shares cut in half. Westwater Resources, a Centennial developer of lithium and uranium resources, lost nearly 70% of its market value.

Declines were especially severe among oil and gas producers, reflecting lower commodity prices and Wall Street’s loss of confidence in the industry.

Whiting Petroleum shares were down 67.6% on the year, while Centennial Resources Development shares lost 58.1% and Extraction Oil & Gas shares were down 50.6%.

Looking ahead, a big driver for the markets in 2020 will be the presidential election, Taylor said.

“A President Trump victory seems to be baked in at this point in time and anything other than that could be a problem for investors,” he predicted.

Thiry, who retains the post of executive chairman at the provider of kidney dialysis treatments, reported total compensation of $32 million and change last year, more than double what he made in 2017.

That was enough to rank him as Colorado’s highest-paid executive, according to 2018 compensation numbers on 468 executives compiled by S&P Global Market Intelligence from corporate proxies.

Salary, or the cash in hand that most people consider pay, accounted for $1.3 million of Thiry’s total compensation. Another $21 million came in the form of restricted shares which vest over time and $5.7 million in stock options.

Those may or may not pay off, depending on how DaVita’s shares perform in the months ahead. Last year, the company’s share price dropped 28.8 percent, but it is up 16 percent this year.

Thiry, who has had a strong hand in shaping DaVita for the past two decades, will be relying on the team led by Javier Rodriguez, who replaced him, to cash in on the value of those shares and options.

DaVita, in a statement, attributed the big jump in Thiry’s compensation to changes in accounting rules for share grants that vest after retirement, not to an extra helping of awards.

“As a result, our 2018 CEO pay was higher than prior years largely due to a one-time accounting charge, and not because incremental equity was granted. Without this, Kent����ap 2018 pay would have been half the amount,” the company said.

The second-highest paid executive in Colorado, Greg Maffei, president and CEO of Liberty Media Corp., had $20.1 million in total compensation last year.

Maffei is a regular on the Colorado highest-paid executive list, and a handful of times has even led national lists. In 2014, he reported $124.1 million in total compensation.

John Malone, founder of the Liberty Media group of companies, rewards his top managers well, provided they deliver. Two other Liberty-family executives ranked among the state’s 10 highest-paid executives.

Michael George, president and CEO of Qurate Retail, ranked fifth in Colorado with total compensation of nearly $14 million. Qurate’s holdings include cable television retailers HSN and QVC, as well as e-commerce site Zulily and Cornerstone Brands.

Right behind him was Balan Nair, president and CEO of Liberty Latin America, who had reported compensation of $13.3 million last year, an increase of 158.8 percent from 2017. Liberty Latin America, a cable system operator, spun off from Liberty Global at the start of last year.

Michael Fries, CEO and chairman of Liberty Global, made $33 million, almost $1 million more than Thiry, and would have claimed the top spot. But Liberty Global, while it runs its worldwide operations out of a Denver office, technically remains a PLC, or British company, based in London.

ANGI Homeservices made a big splash on last year’s executive compensation list, with then CEO Christopher Terrill pulling down $68.8 million and chief product officer William Brandon Ridenour raking in $60.7 million.

That huge payout followed the merger of Golden-based Homeadvisor with Angie’s List in 2017.

Terrill left and Ridenour replaced him as CEO at the digital platform that connects consumers with home repair contractors. Despite a nearly 75 percent cut in pay, Ridenour’s compensation of $15.8 million last year was enough to rank him as the third highest-paid executive in the state.

The lack of the huge payouts from ANGI Homeservices in 2018 pushed the average pay of the top two executives at the 50 largest Colorado companies in market value down 13.1 percent to $5.45 million last year.

Median pay, the point where half of the executives made more and half made less, came in at $4.26 million, up 4.2 percent from 2017. In 2008, it was $2.18 million.

For the 468 Colorado executives examined, cash in hand, consisting of salary and bonus, represented only a fifth of their total compensation last year. That’s up from 18 percent of the total in 2017.

The vast majority came in restricted shares and other stock awards. Stock awards, consisting of either shares that vest over time or shares provided after hitting performance targets, accounted for 46.4 percent of compensation.

Option awards, or the right to buy shares at a given price, dropped down to 11.9 percent of total compensation after surging to 28.5 percent of compensation in 2017.

Large companies, in particular, have placed a heavier emphasis on performance-based stock grants, said John Sinkular, a partner at Philadelphia-based Pay Governance LLC, which counts around 400 clients.

“At the end of day, boards of directors are trying to hold the management team accountable to the strategy,” Sinkular said.

Companies have also tried to become more consistent regarding the amount of stock and option awards they hand out year-to-year, which Sinkular called the “regular annual grant cadence.”

But special awards, retirements and merger and acquisitions can cause that rhythm to speed up in a big way.

The compensation numbers for Colorado show a big jump in other forms of compensation, a category that includes severance and perks like travel on private jets. Those represented 2.5 percent of pay in 2017, but rose to 5.3 percent last year, due largely to some big payouts made to departing executives.

Michael Watford, former chairman, CEO and president of Ultra Petroleum Corp., received $8.7 million in other compensation, the most of any executive in the survey.

Almost all of that involved severance payments tied to his departure. But Watford also received some nice parting gifts, including $59,396 tied to the transfer of the title to the company car he drove and $5,187 in concert tickets.

Randy Wiese, outgoing CFO at CSG Systems International received $4.07 million, again tied mostly to severance. William Fitzgerald, chairman of Ascent Capital Group, reported $3.7 million in other compensation, of which $2.9 million was a lump-sum severance payment.

Sustained gains in the housing market helped MDC Holding’s chairman and CEO Larry Mizel, and David Mandarich, its president and chief operating officer, both break into the highest-paid list again.

The two were regulars in the years before last decade’s housing crash. Mizel had reported compensation of $11.6 million, which ranked eighth in the state, while Mandarich had $11.2 million, which qualified as 10th highest.

Michael Long, chairman, CEO and president of Arrow Electronics, claimed the fourth spot with $15.4 million in compensation, which was 39.5 percent above what he made in 2017.

One of the more unusual appearances was that of Andrew Crouch, former president and COO of Zayo Group Holdings, a provider of broadband services. Crouch made $12.7 million last year, a 403 percent increase from the year before.

He stayed at Zayo only a year before unexpectedly resigning in May 2018. Crouch said at the time he had no immediate plans and would take time to consider his next venture. But by jumping ship, he was able to claim $12.4 million in stock awards.

Also making the highest-paid list in the ninth spot was Gary Goldberg, CEO of Newmont Goldcorp., with $11.2 million in compensation.

Besides executive pay information, corporate proxies for the past two years have included a ratio of CEO compensation to median worker pay, which critics of rising wealth inequality have pushed hard to get included.

Crocs had the largest gap between CEO and worker pay, with CEO Andrew Rees making 634 times the median annual pay of workers at the Niwot shoemaker. Rees made $9.1 million, while workers, many of them based overseas, made $14,344.

Other Colorado companies where the CEO made more in a day, at least on paper, than employees did in a year included DaVita, Qurate Retail and Liberty Latin America.

ANGI Homeservices, Western Union, Arrow Electronics and Pilgrim’s Pride were other Colorado companies where CEOs made more than 200 times the median pay of workers.

Natural resource companies had some of the smallest pay gaps in the state, which reflects a higher pay scale for workers across the board in that sector.

That works out to a return of 11 percent a year versus a return of 8 percent for someone who parked their money in an S&P 500 index fund, said Chris Marangi, a fund manager with Gabelli Funds.

Marangi, an analyst who got his start covering media and telecom stocks, has studied Malone for so long that he now runs Gabelli Media Mogul NextShares, an exchange-traded managed fund that tries to replicate Malone’s approach.

Malone’s magic formula, as described by Marangi, is to invest within your circle of expertise, recruit and retain top talent, use leverage as efficiently as possible and when it comes to taxes, pay less and pay later.

“He is probably the most tax-savvy of investors, rivaled only by Warren Buffett,” said Marangi in a conference call on Thursday.

Malone is also a master of financial engineering, spinning off new companies and tracking stocks left and right to unlock more value for shareholders. The original holding company and its successors have spawned 26 companies and 47 securities, with more expected in the years ahead.

The market value of those separate holdings is $487 billion, according to Marangi. That is not far behind the $495 billion in the market value of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett’s holding company.

Unlike Malone, the Oracle of Omaha prefers to keep his holdings under one tent. Berkshire Hathaway has averaged annual returns of 9.3 percent since 2003, according to Bloomberg.

If Malone and his team can maintain their relative return advantage, they should be able to surpass Buffett, although it will be hard for the public to grasp that has even happened.

Liberty Media’s holdings are concentrated in four buckets. There remains a legacy group of cable and broadband holdings that include a large stake in Charter Communications, the country’s second-largest cable provider. There are content providers like Discovery Communications and Lions Gate Entertainment, which in turn owns the cable network Starz.

There are holdings in e-commerce companies such as TripAdvisor and Lending Tree and shopping networks that are both on cable and online.

Live entertainment holdings represent perhaps the most interesting group of stocks when it comes to unlocking future gains, Marangi said. That bucket includes Formula One Group, concert promoter Live Nation, the Atlanta Braves and a stake in satellite radio provider Sirius XM.

Shares of Liberty Sirius XM Group trade at a 36-percent discount to the underlying company, meaning more gains could be unlocked there, Marangi said. And there is also more value to be had in the Atlanta Braves baseball team.

The tracking stock, Liberty Media Corp.-Braves, has a market value of $1.6 billion, with another $410 million in debt, Marangi said. But he adds the baseball team alone is worth $2.2 billion, with another $400 million in real estate holdings and $200 million in league-related assets.

That works out to a value of $2.8 billion, or the equivalent of $40 a share compared to the price tag of $26.75 a share that investors put on the tracking stock on Friday.

Some ways to unlock that value would be for Malone to spin off the Braves into their own separate company or to put the property holdings into a separate real estate investment trust.

“Liberty Media has shown a propensity to reinvent and redefine itself,” Marangi said, adding he expects it will keep doing so.