Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on Tuesday took his most definitive step yet toward running for president, announcing plans to “actively explore” a campaign.

WASHINGTON — When Jeb Bush completed two terms as governor of Florida in 2007, he reported his net worth at $1.3 million, about $700,000 less than when he took office.

Today, nearly eight years later, he is a wealthier man. He has plunged into business and entrepreneurial ventures involving consulting, the paid lecture circuit and energy development. He has developed real estate, advised international investment banks and joined high-paying corporate boards.

But as he considers a run for president in 2016, Bush has begun to unwind some of his financial affairs, apparently to avoid the kind of criticism that hobbled fellow Republican Mitt Romney in his unsuccessful bid for the White House in 2012.

Bush is quitting Tenet Healthcare — a company that has profited from ObamaCare — and is ending a consulting contract with Barclays Bank to focus on his political future. Aides say he also has stopped giving highly paid speeches to focus on traveling America, meeting with potential donors and testing what a friend calls a “visionary” brand of campaigning.

But Bush’s business record, enmeshed in international finance and some troubled former ventures in south Florida, could end up complicating his return to politics and his hopes to follow his father, George H.W. Bush, and his older brother, George W. Bush, into the Oval Office.

Last year, he took a step into the rarefied world of private equity and offshore investments, joining with former banking executives and a Chinese airline company to make bets on natural gas exploration and shipping. One of the funds was set up in the United Kingdom, a structure that allows the company to shield overseas investors from U.S. taxes.

During the 2012 race, Romney drew ceaseless attacks from Democrats for his lucrative work at Bain Capital, a pioneering venture capital company that bought scores of troubled companies, took over their management and sometimes laid off employees while garnering huge fees and payouts.

But Bush and his aides argue his investments and entrepreneurial ventures are different because he isn’t taking control of companies and restructuring them.

“These are all growth investments that the governor has worked on,” said Bush’s spokesman, Kristy Campbell.

Bush’s latest undertaking is as a partner in three privately held funds that have raised a total of $127 million for investments in domestic and foreign companies. Bill Parish, an investment adviser in Portland, Ore., says the funds are fairly small in the private equity world.