REVEALED! World’s Wealthiest and Hidden Billionaire. See Why He Chose to be a Secret Billionaire Here

He’s one of the 100 richest people in the world and the wealthiest man in New England after Connecticut hedge-fund manager Raymond T. Dalio and nobody knew, until now.

He’s been living a quiet life in Keene, New Hampshire, where his company is based, so quiet that even the Keene Chamber of Commerce overlooked C&S as one of the town's largest employers until the media fished him out from "under the radar" today!

61-year-old Richard Cohen (known as Rick) is chairman, CEO and sole owner of C&S Wholesale Grocers Inc, Worlds largest grocery wholesaler you’ve

never heard of

worth $11.2 billion according to Bloomberg Billionaire.

C&S was created in 1918 by Cohen's grandfather. Cohen's father, Lester, took over the company in 1955. In 1974, "Rick" joined the business after receiving an accounting degree at University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton school and persuaded his father to move the company to Brattleboro, Vermont. Rick transformed C&S into the world’s largest grocery wholesaler after he took the helm of the business in 1989 when his father retired.

Sales skyrocketed in 1974 and annual sales reached $1 billion by 1991 according to the C&S website,

According to Bloomberg, the company had sales of $21.7 billion last year, distributing more than 95,000 products to 4,000 supermarkets from Maine to Hawaii but has never appeared on an international wealth ranking.

On how Rick stays secretive, Matt Miller, editor of Bloomberg Billionaires, tells The Daily Ticker: "Cohen delivers all of his goods in unmarked trucks …and does not have branded trucks as other companies so he's able to stay under the radar."

Matt attributes Cohen’s success to ‘his laser-focus on efficiency, a key in an industry famous for small profit margins. He even pays his employees extra to avoid mistakes on the job’.

So where does as unassuming billionaire put up his feet at the end of the day? Cohen’s family doesn’t display the trappings of wealth. The billionaire and his wife, Jan, live on a street where the average home value is $294,000. The couple owns the most valuable single-family home in a modest Keene neighbourhood, assessed at $1.5 million, according to property tax records.

He also owns real estate in Ogunquit, Maine, and Jackson, Wyoming, according to local property tax records, and has collected more than $50 million in cash payments and promissory notes, according to the prospectus. He also owns Symbotic LLC, a Wilmington, Massachusetts-based warehouse robotics company he bought in 2009.

 The Daily Ticker's Lauren Lyster asked Miller why it pays to be a secret billionaire. "There are a lot of advantageous reasons to stay under the radar," says Miller. "Tax is one. Not wanting to be solicited for a lot of philanthropic things and to be able to give anonymously. To live a life that's frankly a little bit less flamboyant or you know flashy or in the limelight."

Cohen declined to comment for this story. That, to me, is a great example of humble success. What do you think? Leave a comment.