What Companies Does Charlie Mills Own?

Quick answer

Charlie Mills owns one company that matters: Medline Industries. The medical-supply giant — founded by his father Jim Mills and uncle Jon Mills in 1966, headquartered in Northfield, Illinois — is where Mills served as CEO from 1997 to 2023 and where he now serves as chairman. Since the December 2025 IPO (Nasdaq: MDLN), his stake is publicly valued at $11 billion (Forbes 400, 2026). No other Mills-owned companies have ever been publicly disclosed.

That single-company concentration is the point. Medline does $25.5 billion in annual revenue, employs 43,000 people, and sells 300,000+ medical-surgical products in 100+ countries. For how that stake became a fortune, see how Charlie Mills made his money.

Medline Industries: the crown jewel

Medline is the largest privately held manufacturer and distributor of medical-surgical supplies in the United States — "privately held" no longer, since December 2025, but the description still captures its character. The company both makes medical supplies (running more than 20 manufacturing sites in North America) and distributes them through a logistics network that reaches hospitals, nursing homes, surgery centers, and home-care providers.

The scale, per the company's IPO prospectus and 2025 coverage:

Mills chaired the company through its transformation from family firm to public company. Day-to-day operations now sit with CEO Jim Boyle, who rang the Nasdaq opening bell at the IPO — while Mills, as chairman and largest individual family shareholder, guards the family's interest at the board level.

Make it and deliver it: the dual model

Medline's edge is that it does both sides of the supply chain. Pure distributors buy from manufacturers and resell; pure manufacturers rely on someone else's trucks. Medline manufactures core product lines itself — then moves them through its own distribution network directly to healthcare providers. That vertical integration means better margins and stickier customer relationships: switching a hospital's entire supply contract is disruptive, so contracts renew.

The product range is deliberately unglamorous and relentlessly consumable: sterile gloves, surgical masks, surgical trays and blades, gowns, disinfecting wipes, newborn blankets, wheelchairs, walkers, lab equipment, and office supplies. Hospitals reorder these constantly, in good economies and bad — the "recession-resistant cash flow" that IPO investors paid a premium for. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Medline ramped up production of bleach products, face masks, surgical gowns, and sanitizer at crisis scale.

The company has also grown by acquisition — including a 2021 move beefing up its respiratory health portfolio — and by a $1.5 billion commitment to U.S. supply-chain expansion announced that same year. It is a capital-intensive model: factories, warehouses, and trucks rather than software — which is exactly why Medline's predictable cash flows commanded a premium at the IPO.

What Medline actually sells

The heritage: a century in medical supplies

Medline's roots run deeper than 1966. The family's medical-supply lineage starts in 1910 with Mills Hospital Supply, run by Charlie's grandfather Irv Mills. Jim Mills joined it as a sales rep in 1960; Irv sold the company in 1961, and Jim and Jon stayed on for five years before leaving to found Medline in 1966.

The brothers took Medline public in 1972, then bought it back and took it private again in 1977 — where it stayed for 48 years. In 1997, with sales over $600 million, they handed the company to the next generation: Charlie as CEO, Andy Mills as president, Jim Abrams as COO. Charlie Mills is the fourth generation of the family to run the business.

That continuity is rare in American business — and it explains the culture. Jim Mills' 2019 obituary noted he "quietly and without fanfare often paid for both employees' and strangers' college tuition and medical bills," and insisted the company be run "for the total workforce... not necessarily for the shareholders." The family-led ethos survived even the private-equity era.

It also explains the company's patience. A family owner with a 60-year horizon can fund a $1.5 billion supply-chain expansion or ride out a postponed IPO without answering to quarterly earnings calls — the kind of long-game capital allocation that turned a $600 million regional distributor into a $25.5 billion global supplier.

Who owns Medline alongside him

Mills doesn't own Medline alone — but his family owns the biggest piece. The June 2021 leveraged buyout saw Blackstone, Carlyle Group, and Hellman & Friedman acquire a majority stake at a roughly $34 billion valuation. The Mills family rolled its equity and remained the largest single shareholder, with senior management staying in place.

Within the family, the holdings split across the two founding brothers' branches — Charlie (Jim's son) holding the largest individual piece at $11 billion, cousin Andy Mills (Jon's son) at $5.5 billion, and Wendy Abrams (Jon's daughter) at $4.7 billion, per the 2026 Forbes 400. See Charlie Mills vs Andy Mills for the family comparison.

The December 2025 IPO — 216 million shares at $29, raising $6.26 billion, the largest IPO of 2025 globally — diluted everyone proportionally but gave every holder, Mills included, a liquid market price for the first time. IPO proceeds went largely to debt repayment and equity redemptions.

The bumpy road to the IPO

Medline's path to the public markets was not smooth. The company had initially planned to list earlier in 2025 but postponed its debut amid market volatility tied to U.S. trade-policy uncertainty and a government shutdown — tariffs and supply-chain disruptions made bankers nervous about pricing a $6 billion offering into choppy markets. When conditions stabilized late in the year, Medline moved fast.

The underwriting syndicate reflected the deal's size: Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BofA Securities, and JPMorgan acted as lead bookrunning managers. The offering was upsized on strong demand, pricing at $29 — near the top of the $26–$30 range — and the stock's 41% first-day pop validated the decision to wait. For Charlie Mills, the delay was a footnote; for the bankers, it was the difference between a good IPO and a historic one.

Beyond Medline: what's not there

For a man worth $11 billion, Mills' disclosed business footprint is strikingly narrow: no venture portfolio, no second company, no public directorships have ever been reported. That may partly reflect his extreme low profile — private investments wouldn't necessarily surface — but as far as the public record shows, Medline is the entire empire.

The family's philanthropic footprint is real but quiet, in keeping with Jim Mills' style of giving "without fanfare." Charlie Mills' own charitable vehicles have not been publicly detailed. What is documented is the business: one company, six decades, $25.5 billion in sales — and a chairman's stake now trading on the Nasdaq. For the compensation side of the story, see Charlie Mills' salary.

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