Harold Clark Simmons owns Contran Corporation. With his strategic business acumen, he successfully developed the “leveraged buyout (LBO) concept which resulted in him acquiring various corporations. Currently, Simmons has control of 5 publically-traded NYSE companies: NL Industries; Titanium Metals Corporation; Valhi, Inc., CompX International; and Kronos Worldwide. In 2011 he was estimated by Forbes as having a net worth of approximately $9.3bn.