Queensland's Richest 100
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Queensland's richest 100 Article from: • Font size: Decrease Increase • Email article: Email • Print article: Print • Submit comment: Submit comment August 30, 2008 11:00pm • No 1: Clive Palmer • Wealth: $6.5 billion • What: Iron ore mining • Where: Gold Coast EVEN when you are Queensland's richest person and a multibillionaire, sometimes the most important lessons are learned from life itself. Clive Palmer lost his wife of 22 years, Sue, to cancer three years ago. For a time, he managed his grief by immersing himself in his work. Then he began spending time with Anna. "I've known Anna for 20 years. She was married to one of my good friends and he died a month after my wife," Mr Palmer, 54, said. That shared experience brought the couple closer together. They married last year and, in February, he became a father for the third time with the birth of daughter Mary. That new chapter of his life has helped highlight what the billionaire says is part of his successful strategy. It may be coincidental, or a reflection of the renewed joy in his life, but the past 12 months have been productive and profitable for the Gold Coast-based go-getter who puts his active wealth at $6.5 billion. Mr Palmer owns a massive iron ore deposit in Western Australia estimated at 160 billion tonnes. • No 2: Ken Talbot • Wealth: $1.4 billion • What: Coal mining • Where: Brisbane THE state's king of coal is now cashed up after selling the majority of his stake inmining powerhouse Macarthur Coal for $636 million. He has invested in private American miner, PBS Coals, and bought a $51 million private jet. • No 3: John Vanlieshout • Wealth: $1.3 billion • What: Property, investments • Where: Brisbane QUEENSLAND'S first billionaire made his fortune through furniture retailer Super A- Mart. The shrewd 62-year-old has since sold the business and is looking at property investment opportunities. • No 4: Terry Peabody • Wealth: $1.13 Billion • What: Waste management • Where: Brisbane A FRUSTRATING year has seen the 68-year-old, who has interests in waste management and a Hawkes Bay winery, lose his ranking as the state's richest businessman. • No 5: Nev Pask • Wealth: $875 million • What: Property • Where: Gold Coast TO CALL Nev Pask a quiet achiever would be a gross understatement. An elder statesman of theQueensland property development business, he is one of the state's most private, as well as most successful, individuals. Mr Pask has land-banked enough property to build around 9000 homes, much of it in the high-growth areas of Rochedale and Eight Mile Plains south of Brisbane and Chancellor Park on the Sunshine Coast. Raised on a Queensland farm, Mr Pask got his start in property in Sydney before moving back north of the border in 1966. The development of over 1500 house-and-land packages on the Redcliffe Peninsula provided the platform for expansion in Brisbane, Redlands, Logan and the Gold Coast. Today, the Pask Group, which also includes son Dean and daughter Lynne, are involved in projects throughout Queensland and interstate. He lives with wife Barbara on the Gold Coast. • No 6: Gordon Fu • Wealth: $840 million • What: Shopping centres • Where: Brisbane ONE of Queenslands most reclusive entrepreneurs, the 61-year-old increased his wealth by more than $200 million during the year by amalgamating his property interests with those of his son-in-law, Jack Lin. They own 18 shopping centres in southeast Queensland, including Australia Fair on the Gold Coast. Mr Fu, who is married with three children, came to Queensland 17 years ago. • No 7: Gordon Merchant • Wealth: $780 Million • What: Surfing retail • Where: Gold Coast HIS fortune fell by around $100 million over the past 12 months as the price of Billabong shares slipped but that wont worry the lifelong surfer as he spends increasing amounts of his time hitting the waves. The 64-year-old founded the Billabong surfwear empire in 1973 and remains on the company board with 31 million shares. Mr Merchant is also a director and 18 per cent shareholder of Plantic Technologies, a company producing bioplastics from corn starch. He and his partner Deborah McKenzie have a son Keoni, 6. They live on a hilltop at Tugun on the Gold Coast and are building a $12 million mansion surf house at Angourie, south of Yamba. They also have homes in Hawaii and South Africa. • No 8: Jiwan Mohan • Wealth: $675 Million • What: Spices/seeds • Where: Brisbane HIS products are on millions of kitchen tables in Australia. Jiwan Mohan, 58, runs JK International, exporting everything from pappadums to incense from a warehouse at Rocklea in Brisbanes southwest. The company he founded in 1976, after arriving with just a suitcase from India, is one of Australias top global commodity traders, dealing in snack foods, sweets, teas, health products, cordials, pastes and pickles. Mr Mohan also owns a grain processing plant at Horsham in Victoria and an interest in a transcontinental shipping company. Mr Mohan and his wife, Suman, the daughter of migrant banana farmers, have four grown-up children, two sons and two daughters. • No 9: Timothy Fairfax • Wealth: $660 million • What: Media/farming • Where: Brisbane TIMOTHY Fairfax shares a $1 billion plus fortune with his Sydney-based brother John B. Fairfax. They merged their Rural Press with Fairfax Media in 2006, gaining a 14 per cent stake in the media company established by their family in 1841. Mr Fairfax owns a cattle farm at Monto and five pastoral properties in Queensland and New South Wales. He is deputy chancellor of the University of Sunshine Coast, deputy chairman of the Australian Rural Leadership Foundation and chairman of the Salvation Army Brisbane advisory board. Mr Fairfax, 61, and his wife, Gina, moved from the country to inner Brisbane about seven years ago. They have four daughters. • No 10: Peter Bond • WEALTH $635 MILLION • WHAT FUEL • WHERE BRISBANE THE 46-year-old has devised a way to get fuel from discarded coal, and that has resulted in his worth increasing 15-fold in two years. • No 11 PRADELLA FAMILY • WEALTH $630 MILLION • WHAT PROPERTY • WHERE BRISBANE ITALIAN immigrant builder Cesare Pradella worked as a labourer for six years after arriving in Queensland in 1953 before he devised a new method of prefabricating houses and launched his own company to build low-cost homes for the Government. Mr Pradella, 83, died in March but the family-owned firms he founded continue to be run by two of his sons, David and Kim. The group, which developed the Roma St Parkland apartments, turns over $200 million a year in construction and property management. A third brother, Silvio, is a director of the group but is wealthy in his own right from the sale of his Orrcon steel tubing business. He now spends much of his time in the Bahamas. • No 12: MICK POWER • WEALTH $600 MILLION • WHAT CONSTRUCTION • WHERE GOLD COAST IN JUST under three decades Mick Power, 58, has built his family company, BMD, into Australia's biggest privately owned civil construction and urban development firm. With its corporate centre still at Manly on Brisbane's bayside, the company employs more than 1000 people and operates across Australia. Mr Powers work philosophy is: We just get on with things. • No 13: DENIS JEN • WEALTH $580 MILLION • WHAT SHOPPING CENTRES • WHERE TOOWOOMBA THE 84-year-old from Taiwan, who began his working life as a pen salesman, owns five shopping centres: two in Brisbanes Kenmore, theQ Super Centre at Mermaid Waters on the Gold Coast and two in Sydney. • No 14: KEVIN SEYMOUR • WEALTH $570MILLION • WHAT PROPERTY • WHERE BRISBANE THE high spot of the year for this veteran Brisbane developer was both professional and personal. The One Macquarie riverfront development at Teneriffethe city's most exclusive address was completed by his Seymour Group, and he and his wife, Kay, moved in to one of the $6 million penthouses. • No 15: JUNIPER FAMILY • WEALTH $560 MILLION • WHAT PROPERTY • WHERE SUNSHINE COAST THEY are the father-and-son team behind many of the high-rise landmarks in Mooloolaba and Maroochydore. Now the pair, Graeme, 62, and Shaun, 37, has their sights set on building a new Surfers Paradise tower. • No 16 CHRIS WALLIN • WEALTH $550 MILLION • WHAT COAL MINING • WHERE BRISBANE THIS 54-year-old geologist has helped mining giants tap into some of the richest coalmines in the state, yet success and wealth have hardly changed him. He has lived in the same house at The Gap in Brisbane for the past 20 years. • No 17: BRIAN • FLANNERY • WEALTH $547 MILLION • WHAT COAL MINING • WHERE BRISBANE MINING mogul Brian Flannery's personal fortune soared by more than $1 million every day over the past year. Felix Resources, of which he is managing director and a substantial shareholder, has been the top performing stock on the ASX 200 this year, the share price rising 144 per cent. That has added $452 million to the 57-year-olds paper value. • No 18 MAHA SINNATHAMBY • WEALTH $540 MILLION • WHAT DEVELOPMENT • WHERE IPSWICH THERE'S no slowing down 68-year old Maha Sinnathamby, who created the Springfield development west of Brisbane. The Malaysian-born Mr Sinnathamby said there was more development to come, including a health precinct. See story above • No 19 WAGNER FAMILY • WEALTH $500 MILLION • WHAT CONCRETE INDUSTRY • WHERE TOOWOOMBA FAMILY is the strength behind Mary Wagner. The 73-year-old mother of eight and grandmother of 30 runs a concrete and construction firm with her husband and family and is the state's richest woman.