1. Gina Rinehart
Net worth: $21 billion
Gina Rinehart, Australia’s wealthiest person, made her money with iron ore. Gina Rinehart, the daughter of famous iron-ore explorer Lang Hancock, resurrected her father’s financially struggling firm Hancock Prospecting. The Roy Hill mining project is the largest part of her wealth, which began shipping to Asia in 2015. She is also Australia’s second-largest cattle breeder, with a portfolio of properties throughout the nation. In 1992, Rinehart became chairwoman of Hancock Prospecting.
2. Mike Cannon-Brookes
Net worth: 19.4 billion
Atlassian co-founder and CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes is an Australian entrepreneur based in Sydney. Shortly after graduating from college, he and co-CEO Scott Farquhar launched the firm with borrowed money. NASA, Tesla, and SpaceX are among Atlassian’s customers. In December 2020, Cannon-Brookes and Qualtrics creator Ryan Smith invested in the Utah Jazz basketball franchise as part of a joint venture with Smith. Cannon-Brookes has been a strong supporter of renewable energy alternatives over fossil fuels since becoming an entrepreneur.
Mike is the second in the list of 20 richest people in Australia.
3. Scott Farquhar
Net worth: $19.2 billion
Atli Farquhar is the co-founder of collaboration software firm Atlassian, which is based in Sydney, Australia. The company was founded after he and Mike Cannon-Brookes finished their college education with credit cards. NASA, Tesla, and SpaceX are among Atlassian’s clients. Pledge 1%, a movement launched by Farquhar and Cannon-Brookes to persuade businesses to give at least 1% of equity. In Sydney, they own the second-most expensive home and most expensive house, respectively. Scott closes the gap of the top 3 richest people in Australia.
4. Andrew Forrest
Net worth: $17.8
In 1994, Forrest began Anaconda Nickel (now Minara Resources), his first mining firm. Nine years later, he started Fortescue Metals Group, which mines and exports iron ore to China. He’s investing in sustainable energy projects now in order to position the firm as a green energy superpower that produces steel in Australia. To capitalize on China’s growing meat and dairy demands, he also has agricultural investments now. Regarded as Australia’s biggest philanthropist, he made the country’s largest-ever donation of A$655 million to a variety of causes in 2019.
5. Michael Hintze
Net worth: $13 billion
London-based hedge fund CQS is led by its flagship Directional Opportunities fund, which was founded by Michael Hintze. He was born in China to Russian parents and grew up in Australia before joining the army for three years and eventually moving to London in the 1980s. He’s a big supporter of the arts and sciences.
6. Anthony Pratt
Net worth: $9.8
Anthoney Pratt, the Australian billionaire’s executive chairman of Visy Asia-Pacific, which is Australia’s biggest private business, runs a packaging and recycling firm. The company was founded by his grandfather in 1948 in Melbourne and has grown through his father Richard. He also owns Atlanta-based Pratt Industries, the largest corrugated cardboard maker in the United States. His sisters Heloise Pratt and Fiona Geminder both have partial ownership in Visy and are fellow billionaires as well. Anthony’s massive growth has made him appear among the top 20 richest people in Australia.
7. Harry Triguboff
Net worth: $9.1 billion
Triguboff is one of Australia’s wealthiest people. He immigrated to Australia as a teenager after growing up in China to Russian parents. Triguboff achieved success in business by developing higher-density living options in the country’s biggest city, Sydney, which has long been dominated by free-standing houses. Meriton, his apartment tower company, is seeing strong demand in Sydney while also having a presence in southeast Queensland.
When most of his countrymen wanted to live in single-family houses, he was one of the first developers to recognize the appeal of apartment living. He has built over 75,000 apartments under the nickname “High Rise Harry.” The buoyant Sydney market continues to enrich him financially.
8. John, Alan & Bruce Wilson
Net worth: $6.5 billion
The Wilson brothers’ Reece Group is the country’s largest bathroom and plumbing supplies business. Their Reece also offers HVAC-R (heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and refrigeration) to commercial and residential customers. In 2020, the firm celebrated its centennial. John has stepped down from the board but retains a major stake with his brothers Alan and Bruce. In 2008, Alan took over as Reece chairman, and his son Peter currently serves as CEO.
9. Frank Lowy
Net worth: $4.9
Lowy sold his Westfield Corp. to a Franco-Dutch group in a $16 billion transaction that was Australia’s biggest takeover in June 2018, bringing an era to a close. A Holocaust survivor, Lowy established his first shopping center in Sydney in 1959 and launched what became one of the world’s largest mall companies. Today, the Lowys’ main line of work is running their family investment business, Lowy Family Group. The offices are in New York City, Los Angeles, and Sydney. The group is led by Sir Frank with David, Peter, and Steven as main partners.
10. Richard White
Net worth: $4.2 billion
WiseTech Global is a software firm founded in 1994 by Michael White to help logistics businesses manage products and information across supply chains. Since going public in 2016, WiseTech’s shares have increased more than fivefold owing to strong growth in revenue and overseas acquisitions. He is the company’s CEO and chairman.
WiseTech is touted as Australia’s next Atlassian, with headquarters in Sydney and over 17,000 clients in 160 countries. CargoWise One, its cloud-based logistics platform, automates several processes using artificial intelligence (AI). Richard is the 10th person on the list of the top 20 richest people in Australia.
11. Kerry Stokes
Net worth: $4.2 billion
Kerry Stokes followed a winding route to amass his wealth, thanks to his Seven Group Holdings, which owns a number of media, construction, and mining assets. He was given up for adoption when he was young, and he quit school at the age of 14. Selling Caterpillar tractors and trucks in Australia and eventually, China preceded his entrance into the media industry.
12. Clive Palmer
Net worth: $3.7 billion
In 2019, ebullient resources player and former Australian Parliament member Clive Palmer became a billionaire. After a court order allowing the flow of iron-ore royalties to his firm Mineralogy was reinstated, his wealth increased. He has established a portfolio of iron-ore, thermal-coal, and hydrocarbon assets since 1994. He also owned Queensland Nickel, which ran a nickel-and-cobalt refinery (but it went bankrupt in 2016).
13. John Gandel
Net worth: $3.6 billion
Gandel owns Chadstone, Australia’s largest shopping mall, which has more than 500 stores and is located in eastern Melbourne. He also has a major interest in listed property trust Vicinity Centres, which owns the other half of Chadstone as well as other malls and shops. He became wealthy by adding to his Polish immigrant parents’ women’s clothing business, now owned by his niece Naomi Milgrom. But he made most of his money from the shopping malls he obtained for $37 million from Myer department stores during the 1980s.
14. James Packer
Net worth: $3.5 billion
Packer is the biggest shareholder of Crown Resorts, which runs casinos in Australia and London. He took over his father’s empire after he died. Packer resigned from the boards of both Consolidated Press and his family business, Consolided Press, four months ago due to mental health reasons. Following a difficult year when Crown Resorts dumped its Macau and US gambling operations, Packer resigned from the board of Crown Resorts in March 2018. In 2015, Packer settled with his older sister Gretel. He agreed to a partition of assets ten years following their late father’s death.
15. Bianca Rinehart & siblings
Net worth: $3.1 billion
The four children of Gina Rinehart are all beneficiaries of the Hope Margaret Hancock Trust, which owns 23.45 percent of Hancock Prospecting. Bianca Rinehart is the trust’s trustee. In 2014, Bianca and her brother John filed a lawsuit against their mother, claiming she had removed important assets from the trust. Only Ginia works for Hancock Prospecting.
16. Fiona Geminder
Net worth: $2.8 billion
Fiona Geminder owns almost 40 percent of the listed plastics-packaging firm Pact Group, which is run by her husband Raphael Geminder. She also has a significant stake in Visy Asia-Pacific, her family’s paper packaging and recycling business. She does so with her brother Anthony Pratt and sister Heloise Pratt, both of whom are billionaires.
17. Heloise Pratt
Net worth: $2.4 billion
She is the second of three children, and the sister of Anthony Pratt and Fiona Geminder, both billionaires. The four siblings own a portion of Visy Asia-Pacific packaging firm in Melbourne. Heloise also launched Thorney Investments with her now-divorce Alex Waislitz. Thorney Investments owns stakes in over 20 public companies ranging from gas and mining services to renewable energy, biotechnology, and airline reservations. She also has a property portfolio worth about $120 million.
18. Maurice Alter
Net worth: $2.1 billion
Maurice Alter is the owner of Melbourne-based Pacific Group. His son Sam manages the firm, which includes a construction and development arm known as EPC. Maurice Alter’s Pacific was founded in the 1950s and now encompasses a portfolio of shopping malls on both sides of Australia’s east coast. The company’s profitability has been bolstered by shopping mall restorations and expansions, as well as rising costs on Australia’s eastern seaboard.
19. Lindsay Fox
Net worth: $2.1
Lindsay Fox is the CEO and founder of Linfox, Australia’s largest private logistics firm, with 5,000 trucks operating in ten countries across Asia Pacific. The firm also owns a vast industrial property portfolio, a portion ownership in a business park, two airports, and currency-management company Armaguard. Fox is no longer involved in day-to-day operations; his son Peter, who is executive chairman of the company and runs the logistics sector, takes over management. His other sons Andrew and David manage the property sector and run the airports, respectively.
20. David Hains
Net worth: $2.1 billion
Portland House is a hedge fund founded and run by David Hains, who now has three of his children managing it. To improve his golf game, Hains quit working for seven years in the late 1960s under the guidance of renowned Australian coach Norman Von Nida. He later gained renown as an organizational turnaround expert in the United States and as a prominent horse breeder in Australia. The family’s wealth is the only goal of Portland House. David closes our list of top 20 richest people in Australia.
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