By almost any measure, it was an unlikely friendship. The young, slick investment banker, whose fast cars and high-profile girlfriends made him a regular in Sydney’s gossip pages, and the enigmatic environmentalist, decades older than him, who had dropped out of university, started sewing sleeping bags in the 1970s then built an outdoor camping retailer that put her on the Financial Review Rich List.

Jon Adgemis was a Sydney-based KPMG deal maker who had closed enough transactions to make partner at just 28. Jan Cameron was a bona fide recluse, living outside the small coastal Tasmanian town of Bicheno, population circa 650. A dedicated animal welfare activist, she had made her first fortune when she sold her retail chain, Kathmandu, to private equity in 2006 for $NZ275 million.