Kim Schaefer Great Wolf Lodge Net Worth: Facts vs Estimates

Based on publicly available SEC filings and third-party insider-ownership tools, Kim Schaefer's net worth is estimated at a floor of roughly $248,234 in tracked public stock holdings as of late 2025, though that figure almost certainly understates her real financial picture. She served as President and CEO of Great Wolf Resorts through the company's Apollo Global Management acquisition in 2012, earning a documented base salary of $561,000 and committing a mandatory $1.25 million equity investment in the post-acquisition holding company. Those Great Wolf-era holdings were largely private and are not captured in the publicly available insider-trading data that most net worth estimate sites rely on, which is why any single number you find online should be treated as a lower bound, not a full balance sheet.

Who Kim Schaefer is and why Great Wolf Lodge matters

Kimberly K. Schaefer rose to prominence as the top executive of Great Wolf Resorts, Inc., the company that operates the Great Wolf Lodge chain of indoor water park resorts across North America. SEC filings confirm she served as Chief Executive Officer and a Director of Great Wolf Resorts, with her name appearing in the company's Form 10-K/A filed April 13, 2012, as Principal Executive Officer. She was also listed as a director nominee in the proxy statement for the June 2010 annual meeting, meaning she held both operational and governance roles simultaneously.

Great Wolf Lodge is the reason her name comes up in financial research at all. As of the early 2010s, Great Wolf Resorts was a publicly traded company (NASDAQ: WOLF) with a portfolio of large-format family resort hotels built around water parks. The brand was well-known enough that when Apollo Global Management moved to acquire it in 2012, the transaction drew significant scrutiny and media attention. Being the CEO who navigated that transaction put Schaefer at the center of one of the higher-profile hospitality buyouts of that period, and it is that role that drives most searches connecting her name to a net worth figure.

What 'net worth' actually means here

Before looking at any specific number, it is worth being honest about what net worth estimates for executives like Schaefer can and cannot show. True net worth is the full picture: all assets minus all liabilities. That includes salary savings, investment accounts, real estate, private equity stakes, and any other holdings. None of that is publicly disclosed unless someone is running for office or is required to file specific financial disclosures. What is actually available from public records is a narrow slice: equity held in publicly traded companies, as reported on SEC Form 4 insider transaction filings and proxy statement beneficial ownership tables.

Sites like GuruFocus that publish net worth figures for executives are explicit about this limitation. GuruFocus states its Kimberly Schaefer estimate is derived from SEC Form 4 insider ownership and transaction data, and it uses the phrase 'at least' to acknowledge the number is a floor, not a complete accounting. So when you see a figure of $248,234, that reflects the estimated value of shares tracked through insider filings in specific public companies, not a comprehensive wealth calculation. The real number is almost certainly higher, potentially by a very wide margin depending on private holdings, real estate, and post-Great Wolf career earnings.

Her documented roles and business involvement at Great Wolf

Schaefer's involvement with Great Wolf Resorts is well-documented through SEC filings spanning at least 2010 to 2012. The clearest picture comes from three types of documents: proxy statements, annual report filings, and her employment agreement.

• CEO and Principal Executive Officer: confirmed in the Great Wolf Resorts 10-K/A filed April 13, 2012
• Director: listed as a nominee for election to the board in the DEF 14A proxy statement for the June 2010 annual meeting
• President and CEO: explicit title in her employment agreement dated August 13, 2012, which covers the period following the Apollo acquisition
• Insider trader of record: Form 4 filings under reporting owner CIK 0001335887, with at least one example from May 8, 2012
• Beneficial owner: as of September 1, 2010, SEC documents show she held 1,235,329 shares of Great Wolf Resorts, representing approximately 3.8% of outstanding shares

That 3.8% beneficial ownership stake is one of the most concrete data points available for understanding her Great Wolf-era wealth. The value of that stake would have fluctuated with the company's stock price, and the eventual Apollo acquisition price would have determined what she realized from those shares at the time of the buyout, assuming she held them through close of transaction.

How her net worth estimate is built from public data

Any credible estimate of Kim Schaefer's net worth relies on layering several public data sources, then acknowledging the gaps. Here is how that construction works in practice.

Compensation data from proxy statements

Great Wolf Resorts proxy statements include Summary Compensation Tables for named executive officers. These tables report salary, stock awards (at grant-date fair value under FASB ASC Topic 718), option awards, non-equity incentive compensation, and total annual compensation. Importantly, grant-date fair value as reported in these tables does not equal realized economic value. The proxy statement footnotes explicitly note this distinction, which matters when you are trying to estimate actual wealth accumulation rather than just headline compensation figures.

The 2012 employment agreement as a baseline input

The August 13, 2012 employment agreement between Schaefer and Great Wolf Resorts is the richest single document for compensation modeling. It sets her initial base salary at $561,000 per year and includes an equity investment requirement of $1,250,000 in K-9 Holdings, Inc. common stock, which was the post-acquisition holding entity tied to Apollo's buyout structure. On top of that mandatory investment, the agreement outlines option and restricted stock grants with specific quantities and values. These terms give any analyst a concrete starting point: a six-figure salary, a seven-figure equity commitment, and additional equity grants layered on top.

Insider trading filings and the GuruFocus model

The GuruFocus estimate of 'at least $248,234' as of November 26, 2025, is built entirely from SEC Form 4 data. GuruFocus and similar sites summarize the result you may see when people search for bernie schaeffer net worth. The site tracks the final shares held after all reported open-market and private transactions and assumes the person still holds those shares. For Schaefer, the tracked holdings include shares in Education Realty Trust (EDR), Hall of Fame Resort and Entertainment (HOFV), and LuxUrban Hotels (LUXH). These are post-Great Wolf positions, suggesting she moved into other board or executive roles after leaving the company or after the Apollo transaction closed. The model multiplies share counts by current or recent stock prices to get an implied minimum value.

The critical limitation here is what falls outside SEC Form 4 reporting. Her Great Wolf Resorts shares from the public-company era would appear in historical filings, but after the Apollo acquisition took the company private, any equity she held in the private entity would not flow through public insider reporting. That $1.25 million mandatory equity investment in K-9 Holdings is a perfect example: it was documented in SEC filings at the time, but the ultimate value it returned to her is not publicly disclosed.

Net worth estimate ranges and how they have changed

The trajectory matters as much as any single number. During her tenure at Great Wolf Resorts as a public company, Schaefer held a meaningful equity stake that would have been worth several million dollars depending on when the stock was trading and at what price Apollo closed the buyout. After the acquisition, her wealth picture shifted to private equity in the Apollo-backed entity and whatever she realized from the transaction. The GuruFocus figure of $248,234 reflects only the post-Great Wolf public stock footprint, which is a dramatically different and smaller slice of her financial history than what the Great Wolf years likely produced.

What actually drives her net worth over time

Understanding the key drivers helps put the numbers in context and explains why estimates vary so widely depending on which data source you consult.

1. Great Wolf Resorts equity stake: The 3.8% beneficial ownership position documented in 2010 was the single largest wealth driver from this period. The value was tied directly to Great Wolf's stock price and the ultimate acquisition premium paid by Apollo.
2. Apollo acquisition equity: The $1.25 million mandatory investment in K-9 Holdings and associated options/restricted stock created a new, private equity position in the post-buyout entity. The value of this stake depends entirely on how the Apollo-owned business performed and whether there were subsequent distributions or a liquidity event.
3. Base salary and annual incentives: A $561,000 base salary in 2012, with additional non-equity incentive compensation described in proxy materials, represents meaningful annual cash accumulation over a multi-year tenure.
4. Post-Great Wolf board and executive roles: The presence of EDR, HOFV, and LUXH shares in GuruFocus's tracker suggests Schaefer took on roles at other companies after Great Wolf. These positions typically come with equity grants that add to long-term wealth.
5. Investment decisions and private holdings: Any savings, real estate, or private investments from her career are not captured in public filings and represent a completely opaque portion of total net worth.

How to verify this and what to watch out for

If you want to do your own due diligence on Kim Schaefer's net worth and Great Wolf Lodge connection, here is exactly where to look and how to assess what you find. If you are searching for kim schaefer net worth, the most reliable approach is to compare the documented compensation and SEC-tracked holdings rather than trusting a single public number. If you are looking specifically for Tim Schaecker net worth, the key takeaway is that public estimates often cover only what is disclosed, not the full assets and liabilities picture. If you are searching for Doug Schieffer net worth, note that most figures also tend to reflect partial, publicly reported holdings rather than a complete wealth calculation. However, her total wealth is not fully captured by public filings, which is why estimates for George Schaeffer’s net worth online can vary widely george schaeffer opi net worth.

Primary sources to check

• SEC EDGAR (sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar): Search for 'Kimberly Schaefer' or 'Kim Schaefer' as a reporting owner. Her Form 4 filings from the Great Wolf era are accessible, including the May 2012 filing under CIK 0001335887. Filter by filing type 'DEF 14A' for Great Wolf Resorts to pull proxy statements with compensation tables and beneficial ownership data.
• Great Wolf Resorts DEF 14A filings: The 2010 and 2012 proxy statements contain her biographical information, beneficial ownership percentages, and executive compensation tables. These are the most authoritative documents for her public-company compensation.
• The August 2012 employment agreement: Filed as an SEC exhibit, this document provides the hard numbers on base salary ($561,000), equity investment requirement ($1,250,000), and grant terms. Cross-reference any estimate that claims Great Wolf-era compensation figures against this document.
• GuruFocus.com: Useful as a quick aggregator of Form 4-derived holdings, but read the methodology disclaimer carefully. The estimate is explicitly a floor based on public filings, not a full net worth assessment.

Red flags to watch for

• Any site claiming a specific, precise net worth figure (like '$4.2 million') for Kim Schaefer without citing SEC filings, proxy statements, or a named valuation methodology is almost certainly fabricated or derived from other equally unsourced sites.
• Claims that conflate grant-date fair value of stock awards with actual realized wealth. The Great Wolf proxy footnotes explicitly note these are accounting values, not economic returns.
• Net worth pages that do not distinguish between the public-company era (where some data exists) and the post-Apollo private-company era (where it largely does not). Mixing these without noting the data gap inflates apparent precision.
• Any page that presents GuruFocus's '$248,234' figure as a complete net worth rather than a minimum derived from a limited subset of public stock positions.
• Sites that confuse Kim Schaefer with other people named Schaefer or Schaeffer. This site covers multiple prominent individuals with the Sch- surname, and similar names like George Schaeffer or Bernie Schaeffer have entirely different financial profiles in entirely different industries.

What a realistic estimate looks like

Pulling all the public data together, a reasonable working estimate for Kim Schaefer's net worth would start well above the GuruFocus floor. For more on how people arrive at a figure like this, see the discussion of George W Schaeffer net worth Kim Schaefer's net worth. Her documented Great Wolf equity stake alone, at the 3.8% beneficial ownership level and assuming any reasonable acquisition premium, likely generated seven-figure proceeds. Add a $561,000 annual salary for several years of tenure, the $1.25 million equity investment that presumably generated some return, and post-Great Wolf equity positions at other companies, and a total net worth in the range of several million dollars is plausible, though not confirmed from any public source. The honest answer is: the floor is documented at around $248,000 in tracked public stocks, the ceiling is unknowable from public data, and the most evidence-supported range sits somewhere in the low-to-mid seven figures based on the compensation and equity structure she had during her Great Wolf tenure.