He is not.
1) The FPL case was a certified as a class action by Judge Miller in Miami-Dade; this is not the same as having a $10 billion verdict. While Plaintiffs may be
claiming a $10 billion loss, there has been no verdict or final judgment awarding that amount, and the case could still be lost at summary judgment or at trial.
2) Ruiz's firm has not won $20 billion in the class actions. He has a) won class actions, and b)
valued those class actions in the billions (see point 1), but he has not recovered that whatsoever.
Again, Ruiz is a showman (and a **** good one at that); he has been a very, very successful lawyer by all measures, but claiming $20 billion in recovery of class actions would make him the most successful lawyer in this country's history. He is not that.
3) With regard to the MSP recovery, Ruiz has made money, yes. But he is not the guy who sees the entire recovery. Another law firm prosecutes the case, and Ruiz takes 40% of
that recovery. His nut is 40% of 40%; it is not the full 40%. His process works this way:
- Ruiz identifies a claim where Medicare paid a claim when the insurer should have. He farms this identified claim to another firm, agreeing to take 40% of the farmed firm's recovery. Most plaintiff's firms take 35-40% under Florida law; thus, Ruiz recovers 40% of that ultimate recovery.
- Let's say that the farmed firm gets a $1 million recovery. That firm pockets 40%, or $400,000. Ruiz takes his 40% cut, or $160,000. That's his nut for identifying the claim and farming out the case.
That's a nice little piece of action! But there are a bunch of issues with this. First, very few of the claims identified are worth $1 million; most of the recoveries, in totality, are less than $75,000. But Ruiz has argued in his SEC papers that within five years, his firm will be making $24 billion in revenue
annually by 2026. Setting aside the fact that a) that is roughly equivalent to the annual revenue generated by Exxon-Mobil, and b) many of the claims he identifies are small, the numbers are just very hard to believe.
Based on the $1 million example above, Ruiz would need to identify roughly 150,000 claims - and have the farmed firm recover in every single one of them - in order to reach that target. There are only so many claims that are out there, and the number gets smaller each time MSP identifies any such claim. And his own success drives down his firm's ability to recover in the future, since Medicare itself has identified the issue and the number of mistaken payments are dwindling every year.
4) Ruiz is independently wealthy (which is why I've always said, along with Original Cane Hater, that no matter what happens with MSPR, Ruiz will continue to effectuate those deals). I'd put his net worth at around $100 million, based on the fact that he's a very, very good lawyer and was the first game in town on the MSP Recovery stuff.
That's the type of cheese that affords you the ability to purchase the $40 million home on the water and the cigarette boating team. And there's ALWAYS a lender willing to extend money to people who have their money tied up in stock; Ruiz could easily borrow enough money to finance the planes, the boating teams, etc. putting up his ownership percentage in MSPR as collateral. As long as one bank/equity firm is willing to bankroll you based on a belief that the stock will go up eventually, he'd be able to buy all the planes he wants. He isn't reaching into his pocket and dropping down $150M to purchase the plane outright; it's all financed.
People will point at me and say that I'm a hater, blah blah blah. I'm not. Ruiz has enough $$ to continue being a player in the NIL stuff, and he's done very, very well for himself. But he's only a billionaire if the MSPR stock ends up at the price he values it at, and right now the market isn't buying that valuation. It's just that simple.
Jeff Bezos wasn't the richest man in the world until Amazon stock started trading at a premium. Ruiz won't be one of the wealthiest men in the country until MSPR starts doing the same. Pretty simple.