How the Rich Lister used his parents' support to achieve billionaire status for the family by turning prime Sydney venues into entertainment wonderlands.
Behind Justin Hemmes’ relaxed demeanour is a fastidious businessman. Those who know him and have worked for him describe him as “microscopic” in his level of enquiry and “incredibly numerate". Louie Douvis
When Justin Hemmes was a boy, his father would take him on excursions to look at real estate. They’d drive past buildings for sale and John Hemmes would point them out and lament to his son, “I could have bought that for you for £10” but he'd missed the chance.
“He just loved buildings and walking through them,” Hemmes says of his father. John Hemmes, who passed away in 2015, is best known for Merivale, the fashion business named after his wife that brought miniskirt glam to Australia. But deep down he was a property man. Investments in inner-city Sydney real estate got him onto the second-ever Rich List, back in 1984, with a family fortune of $12 million.
