Correction: An earlier version of this story erroneously said Stewart Mills’ financial disclosure form reflected the value of Fleet Farm as a whole; his filing reflected only his share of the company. The article has been corrected.

Republican 8th District congressional candidate Stewart Mills’ portion of his family’s Fleet Farm business is worth between $41 million and $150 million, earning between $4 million and $12 million last year, according to a personal financial disclosure form filed by Mills last week [PDF].

Stewart Mills and his siblings are the third generation of Mills to operate the Fleet Farm retail chain, which was founded by Mills’ grandfather. The Fleet Farm chain and several businesses associated with it are listed as assets on the financial disclosure form required for all congressional candidates, which Mills filed with the U.S. House Clerk on August 20.

The financial disclosure forms give candidates a very broad range for listing the value of their assets, thus the wide difference between the minimum and maximum value of Mills’ stake in the company.

Mills himself earned just less than $570,000 in salary from Fleet Farm last year, according to the filing. He’s considered an executive, administrator or trustee for many individual Fleet Farm stores and the various operations associated with the chain, and lists liabilities between $7 million and $35 million, all tied up in the company.

Fleet Farm opened in 1955 and operates 32 retail locations in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and North Dakota, carrying a range of products, from outdoor gear to home improvement supplies and equipment.

“Stewart is an entrepreneur helping to lead a 90 year-old business headquartered in Brainerd that has been in his family for three generations,” Mills campaign coordinator Isaac Schultz said in a statement. “His aggressive reinvestment in his family’s businesses has created thousands of full and part time jobs right here in Minnesota. Stewart’s experience in the private sector is the reason he’s running for Congress.”

Mills announced his challenge to Democratic Rep. Rick Nolan in June. On his annual financial disclosure form [PDF] filed in May, Nolan listed a net worth between about $700,000 and $1.5 million, tied up in investment funds, a house in Nisswa, Minn., a condo in Florida and a sawmill and palette manufacturing company. He earned between $27,700 and $86,600 off those assets, mostly in interest and rent payments, and listed $36,879 in income from a state of Minnesota pension and a real estate and consulting firm.

Devin Henry can be reached at dhenry@minnpost.com. Follow him on Twitter: @dhenry

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17 Comments

  1. Am I Supposed To Believe That?

    He’s an “entrepreneur”? This guy was born on third base, and he’s decided he hit a triple.

    1. Oh please

      The guy’s worked in the family store since he was 14. Compare that to our other retail mogul politician Mark Dayton who never worked a day in his family’s store. At least Mills earned his money.

      1. LOL

        Yeah Tester – he is worth 150 million dollars because he worked at the store. It is called inheritance – a gift, not earned income. BTW your source for this comment?

        1. Check out his bio

          on his website. Unless of course you think he’s lying about his bio.

          1. Don’t know if he is lying or not

            But I did see that his company takes money from the evil gov’t to build more stores. Another socialist capitalist who makes big money from handouts paid by middle class taxpayers

      2. I’m sure he had a real hard time working, do you think he ever had to ask for extra hours to make sure he could make his rent payment? He probably had a heck of a time getting his vacation requests approved.

        Face it, he was born into an empire and doens’t fully understand the value of a dollar. Just because he has a multi-million dollar share in a multi-million dollar company doesn’t mean anything. Give me the same role and i’m sure I can hire a handfull of people at $60-80K/yr to run my business and make good decisions so it continues to expand and flourish.

      3. Missing the point

        The difference between Dayton and Mills, is that Dayton has never pretended that he did not come from privilege, while born millionaire Mills has the gall to call himself an entrepeneur. Its not Mills’s money that is the problem, its his hypocrisy.

  2. No complaints from Mills enterprises

    I was very happy with long service from Mills GM in Brainerd. But I’ll stay with Rick Nolan to look after this district in D.C.

  3. 2% club

    It looks like we have two members of the 2% club running against each other.

    1. I wouldn’t consider Nolan a 2% guy, usually you have to be upwards of $250K/yr, however he sure is not hurting by any means.

  4. It is quite obvious

    if you want to look, that Nolan is, and has been, a representative of the Middle class. Mills is another of the wanna-be elite ‘legislators’ who would continue to ‘ feather the nests’ of his rich supporters.

  5. Oxymoron

    As someone who started and still runs a good size business and did so with no help from family resources I am put off by Mills spokesman describing him as an entrepreneur. Some one who is running a family business is not an entrepreneur; he is conserving the family assets and is best described as a personal asset conservationist or conservative for short. Good for him but to say he is an entrepreneur is an oxymoron. We entrepreneurs are too busy entrepreneuring to run for anything.

  6. grammer goober

    BTW, Nolan does not manufacture painting boards, called palettes. They make pallets, used to transport heavy items.

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