Charlie Mills vs Andy Mills Net Worth: The $5.5B Family Gap

Quick answer

Charlie Mills ($11 billion) is worth roughly twice as much as his cousin Andy Mills ($5.5 billion) — and both fortunes come from the exact same company. The two men are first cousins who ran Medline Industries together for 26 years: Charlie as CEO (1997–2023), Andy as president. Their fathers — brothers Jim and Jon Mills — founded the medical-supply giant in 1966.

Both debuted on the 2026 Forbes 400 as newcomers after Medline's December 2025 IPO (Nasdaq: MDLN) put a public price on the family's stakes: Charlie at No. 141, Andy at No. 311. The $5.5 billion gap between them is a story about which branch of the family kept how much — and about who ran the machine. For Charlie's full fortune breakdown, see Charlie Mills' net worth.

Tale of the tape

Same company, same IPO, same list — a $5.5 billion difference. Here's why.

The family tree behind the fortunes

Medline was founded in 1966 by two brothers: Jim Mills and Jon Mills. Jim — the elder, who served as longtime CEO — had three children from his first marriage: Charles (Charlie), Donald, and Peggy. Jon's children include Andy Mills and Wendy Abrams.

In 1997, the founding brothers handed the company to the next generation in one coordinated move: Charlie (Jim's son) became CEO, Andy (Jon's son, Jim's nephew) became president, and Jim Abrams (Jon's son-in-law) became COO. The trio ran Medline together for a quarter century — Charlie setting strategy as chief executive, Andy running the commercial engine as president.

Jim Mills died in 2019. When the 2021 buyout and 2025 IPO crystallized the family's wealth, the split followed the two branches: Jim's line (Charlie) with the larger share, Jon's line (Andy, Wendy, and others) with the rest.

Why the $5.5 billion gap?

Three factors explain why Charlie's stake is worth roughly double Andy's:

1. The branch split. The founding brothers' equity divided between their descendants, and the Jim Mills branch evidently retained the larger portion. The exact percentages were never disclosed — family ownership splits rarely are — but the Forbes math is unambiguous: $11 billion vs $5.5 billion.

2. The CEO premium of responsibility. Charlie didn't just inherit more; he ran the company for 26 years as CEO, growing sales from about $600 million in 1997 to $25.5 billion in 2024. Andy's role as president was senior and essential, but the chief executive's seat — and the equity grants and influence that come with it — sat with Charlie.

3. Timing of the handoff. When Jim Mills died in 2019, his holdings passed within his branch of the family. Charlie, as the son most involved in the business, consolidated the largest individual position — becoming, per Forbes, the family's single biggest holder.

None of this is a slight on Andy Mills: at $5.5 billion, he is still the 311th-richest American — wealthier than the vast majority of the Forbes 400's 400 names. And the branch split cuts both ways: Jon Mills' line produced four billionaires (Andy, Wendy, Nancy, Margaret) to Jim's line's one — breadth versus concentration.

Parallel careers, different paths in

The cousins took different routes to the same boardroom. Charlie went the Cornell MBA route and ascended to CEO at 36. Andy worked in brand management at Procter & Gamble before joining the family firm — starting, notably, as a sales representative in Dallas, Texas — and worked his way up to president.

The P&G stint is telling: Andy learned consumer marketing at one of the world's best training grounds, then applied it to medical supplies. Charlie learned the business from the inside, as the founder's son. Both paths worked. By the 2021 buyout, they were presenting a united front to Blackstone, Carlyle, and Hellman & Friedman — and both rolled their equity into the ~$34 billion deal that set up the IPO.

Today, Charlie is chairman and Andy is a director of the public company, with day-to-day operations in the hands of CEO Jim Boyle.

The wider family: five billionaires and counting

The cousin comparison is only part of the picture. The 2026 Forbes 400 captured three Medline billionaires, but the family counts at least five:

The list's cutoff hit a record $4.4 billion in 2026 — which is why Nancy and Margaret, billionaires in any normal year, didn't make the cut. The combined family holding makes the Mills clan one of the great American family fortunes built in a single generation of compounding — and a reminder that the December 2025 IPO didn't create the wealth, it merely revealed it. For the IPO story itself, see how Charlie Mills made his money.

What happens next for both fortunes

The IPO changed the nature of both cousins' wealth. Before December 2025, the $11 billion and $5.5 billion figures were estimates — Forbes valuing a private stake against comparable public companies, less a liquidity discount. Now both fortunes are marked to market daily with the MDLN ticker. A 10% move in Medline's share price shifts Charlie's net worth by roughly $1.1 billion and Andy's by about $550 million — the gap between them widening and narrowing with the market.

Both men remain inside the tent: Charlie as chairman, Andy as a director, with the family collectively still Medline's largest single shareholder even after the private-equity majority. Any future share sales — the classic post-IPO liquidity path — would show up in SEC filings, giving the public its first real look at how the two branches manage their holdings. Until then, the scoreboard reads $11 billion to $5.5 billion, updated every trading day.

Verdict

Charlie Mills wins the cousin comparison at $11 billion vs $5.5 billion — double the fortune from the same company. The gap comes down to lineage (Jim's branch vs Jon's branch), role (26 years as CEO vs president), and consolidation (largest individual family holder). But the deeper truth is that both men won the same lottery: being born into the family that owned Medline, and being competent enough to grow it from $600 million to $25.5 billion instead of squandering it. Plenty of heirs manage the second part worse.

And the contest isn't over. With MDLN trading publicly, the scoreboard updates every day — and the next chapter (share sales, dividends, succession) will be filed with the SEC for everyone to see. For now, though, the family ranking is settled: Charlie first, Andy second, Wendy third — and all of them a long way above the $4.4 billion cutoff that keeps their billionaire relatives Nancy and Margaret off the list entirely.

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