From bar tsars, mining magnates and fashionistas, who are the wealthiest people in Queensland? 2022’s rich list has been revealed
Queensland gained another billionaire over the past year and although most of the Sunshine State’s rich-listers are well known, there are some who like to stay under the radar. Here’s our rich list for 2022.
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The Sunshine State is home to 10 per cent of the country’s billionaires, with 13 making the list of Australia’s 250 wealthiest people this year.
Although the majority of Australia’s 131 billionaires are based in Victoria and New South Wales, Clive Palmer is still Queensland’s best-known — and richest — moneybags.
He doubled his stash from $9.76 billion in 2021 to $18.35 billion in 2022, climbing the national scale from eighth place last year to seventh.
This year, there were two newcomers to the state’s billionaire list with Trevor St Baker hitting $1.31 billion after adding $635 million to his wealth and Trevor Lee scraping over the line at $1.03 billion.
Other regulars to grace the Queensland billionaire list include property developer and former furniture retailer John van Lieshout whose wealth rose from $2.45b to $2.56b along with pub chain owner Bruce Mathieson with $2.05 billion.
But here is our list of Queensland’s richest for 2022 including those who often go under the radar:
TAHNEE AND SIMON BEARD: CULTURE KINGS
$503 million ranked 248
Fashion gurus Tahnee and Simon Beard made Australia’s top 250 rich list for the first time in 2021, and this year came in at number 248.
The powerhouse couple and Culture Kings founders’ latest recorded wealth was $503 million, mostly from their retail outlet which employs DJs and sells T-shirts and streetwear.
The pair started off selling slippers to Schoolies on the Gold Coast and an eBay importing business before moving into the hip clothing industry in 2008.
Last year, they sold part of their streetwear business to US firm Summit Partners and its a.k.a brands, which floated on the New York Stock Exchange.
JUDITH BRINSMEAD: ADCO
$519m up from 459m; ranked 245
ADCO Constructions chairman Judith Brinsmead was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in this year’s Queen’s Birthday Honours List, which coincided with the 50th anniversary of the construction giant, which made $32 million pre-tax profit last year.
According to her biography, she joined the board as an executive director in 1989 after a successful career as a lawyer and barrister.
Over three decades, she has been a driving force behind the growth and development of ADCO, which was started by her former husband Bob Hill, in 1972. Brinsmead took ownership in 2018 after her divorce.
The Brinsmead family also owns the Tropical Fruit Farm World farm.
ROBIN MURPHY AND FAMILY: CANSTRUCT
$523m ranked 243
Under the leadership of Robin Murphy, Canstruct began its first major business ventures in Papua New Guinea in the 1960s.
Murphy is proud the company operates in some of the most demanding environments in the Pacific and remote regions of Australia.
It even built $1.6 billion facilities at Nauru Detention Centre for the Australian Government.
As Canstruct continued to grow and take on bigger and more complex projects, the company expanded from a family-based business to now employing more than 500 staff and contractors.
Murphy also has extensive property holdings.
SONIA AND PAUL STOVELL: OCTOPUS DEPLOY
$533m ranked 240
Husband-and-wife team Sonia and Paul Stovell started up one of the country’s newest billion dollar start-up tech companies in 2021 and now have NASA and Microsoft among clients.
After Octopus Deploy received a $US172.5 million ($232m) investment from US-based Insight Partners, it was valued at $1b along with Go1, another Brisbane company, based at Eight Mile Plains.
Octopus Deploy is the solution for many large companies being bombarded with constant software updates.
The name came after Mr Stovell, who once worked for Credit Suisse, drew an explanatory diagram to who a client what the company does.
Octopus Deploy now has 7200 customers including Disney, ASOS and Xero.
STUART GILES AND CATHY REID: EPIC PHARMACY
$543m ($502m) ranked 234
Stuart Giles and his wife and long-term business partner Cathie Reid were the driving force behind Australia’s largest comprehensive cancer care provider, Icon Group.
But last year they exited after majority owners QIC and Goldman Sachs sold the business to Swedish private equity firm EQT for $2.5 billion.
Mr Giles was also a general partner and advisory committee member overseeing HEAL Partners Growth Fund. He was also a major shareholder in the Australian Premier League T20 cricket competition.
After establishing the Icon national footprint in 2011, he played a key role in driving international expansion.
He stepped down as founding chairman in 2020 to focus on his family office and philanthropic investments but remains a significant shareholder in the business.
Cathie Reid and the couple’s children Sam, and Sascha, are still involved with the philanthropic interests at Epic Good Foundation, which focuses on gender equality and indigenous health.
In 2020, they had a net wealth of $550 million.
BEVAN SLATTERY: PIPE NETWORKS
$557m ($450m) ranked 228
Bevan Slattery worked as a local government clerk for Rockhampton City Council before starting out on his own venture to fame and fortune.
He co-founded iSeek, a cloud, data centre and connectivity provider in 1998 before selling it for $16 million in 2000 to a US tech company.
He started the fibre optics business Pipe Networks, data centre business NEXTDC and broadband company Superloop.
This year, he was ranked at #69 on The Courier-Mail’s list of Queensland’s most powerful people.
Slattery also owns submarine cable operator SubPartners; Cloudscene, the world’s largest data centre and services provider directory; and HyperOne, which is building a 20,000km fibre optic network connecting every major Australian capital city.
GRAHAM TURNER: FLIGHT CENTRE
$564m ($506m) ranked 224
Affectionately known as Skroo, Graham Turner was already hinting in August that Christmas flights would be chaos this year as holiday fever overtakes Covid.
His Flight Centre travel agency business, which he started with pals Geoff Harris and Bill James, has weathered the pandemic and come out the other side.
After 50 years, Turner is still in management. He does not have time to help out his wife Jude, who runs her own prestigious Spicers Retreat eco-lodge business.
Before Flight Centre, Turner and his two co-founders ran Top Deck Travel in London in the 1970s.
TERRY PEABODY: TRANSPACIFIC; CRAGGY RANGE
$620m (628m) ranked 208
Terry Peabody made his fortune from the waste industry and his Transpacific company which he set up after moving to Australia from the US to work on the Snowy Hydro Scheme in the 1960s.
He sold Transpacific after it listed in 2013 and then set up Craggy Range in 1998 in New Zealand.
He wanted to create a long-term legacy and so established a 1000-year trust which means the winery will not be sold for a long time.
PHIL USHER: PHILIP USHER CONSTRUCTIONS
$624m (592m) ranked 203
Philip Usher started his property business in 1987 and since then it has grown in leaps and bounds, building units, high-rises and CBD apartments.
In August, the construction giant announced plans to develop a 220-unit retirement village in Holland Park West, southeast of Brisbane’s CBD.
According to The Australian, the business has almost $500 million in assets on its balance sheet, including a substantial pastoral business encompassing about 1.2 million hectares of cattle properties across five Queensland stations.
PETER HUGHES: HUGHES PASTORAL GROUP
$626m ($605m) ranked 202
Cattle king Peter Hughes and wife Jane made their fortune grazing purebred Wagyu beef from their 160,000ha pastoral empire at Tierawoomba station, about 100km inland from Mackay in central Queensland.
It is the country’s largest wagyu herd and totals more than 130,000 head of cattle across the five stations of the Georgina Pastoral and Hughes Pastoral businesses.
Last year, Hughes cut the most valuable deal in the country for a single pastoral holding when he snapped up the 438,000ha Miranda Downs station in the Gulf of Carpentaria for a mere $180 million.
SCOTT HUTCHINSON: HUTCHINSON BUILDERS
$677m (681) ranked 186
Scott Hutchinson, the boss of the nation’s largest privately-owned builder, reported another terrible year with a profit of $21.2 million in the year to June 30, compared to $27.7 million the previous year.
Company revenue hit $2.67 billion in 2021 from projects including a $260m office tower at Ann St, Brisbane and the billion-dollar West Village redevelopment in the city’s West End.
The family business was started in 1912 by John (Jack) Hutchinson, who clinched a deal to build a new kitchen for the Queensland government at Fort Lytton.
MICK POWER: BMD
$778m ($744m) ranked 161
Queensland rich-lister Mick Power handed over the reins of his billion-dollar construction company he founded in 1979 to his son Scott in 2020.
At the start, Power and his wife often worked 12-hour days, six days a week with the company making a profit of only $800 in its first year.
But since then, BMD has grown into one of Australia’s largest privately owned engineering design, construction and land development contractors with both Mick and Scott at the helm.
Power named the group using the first letters of names of family members. It now has an annual revenue of about $1.55 billion.
CON MAKRIS AND FAMILY: MAKRIS GROUP
$835m ($1.11b) ranked 156
Con Makris moved to Queensland in 2017 from Adelaide and since then has been selling down his commercial property portfolio, even though he still owns Marina Mirage.
Con and the wider Makris family were named on The Australian’s “Richest 250” list as having a net worth of $1.11bn in 2021 which dropped this year to $835 million.
He sold the Hallett Cove Shopping Centre for $71 million in 2020 and also offloaded an apartment in the Palazzo Versace at Main Beach for a reported $6 million.
But he has retained other substantial assets on the Gold Coast and shopping centres in Adelaide and Melbourne.
Makris arrived in Adelaide from Greece aged 16 and started buying properties while running takeaway chicken shops before moving into shopping centres.
KEVIN SEYMOUR: SEYMOUR GROUP
$950m ($935m) ranked 140
One of Queensland’s wealthiest property tycoons Kevin Seymour has transformed parts of Brisbane with his Seymour Group’s commercial and residential projects.
He’s best known for developments such as Queens Plaza and MacArthur Chambers.
He started out in property development on a $380,000 block in Victoria St, West End in 1976.
But he has also turned his hand to reinventing an old car yard site into a $600 million urban village in Newstead in Brisbane’s inner east.
Seymour also has stakes in a mortgage lending business, and oil and gas exploration projects in regional Queensland.
DENIS WAGNER: WAGNERS CONSTRUCTION
$1b ($1.01b) ranked 130
Denis Wagner is the name behind the construction dynasty that built Toowoomba’s Wellcamp Airport. The company was founded by the Wagner family in 1989 and floated on the ASX in 2017.
Its holdings fell over the past two years after a $27 million cement business slump as projects failed to materialise.
The Wagner family owns stakes in the listed group and Wellcamp Airport, which opened in 2014.
The private Wagner Corporation owns the airport and has other assets, including quarries and rural residential property land holdings.
SAM CHONG: JELLINBAH GROUP
$1b ($1.04b) ranked 129
Sam Chong was one of the founders of the Jellinbah East Coal Mine in the Bowen Basin. His partners were Jim Gorman, Gary Zamel and the late Ken Talbot.
Operations at the open-cut mine began in 1989.
Much of Chong’s fortune is from his stake in the coal mine. Profits fell in 2021 but it paid $126 million in dividends, $200 million less than in 2020.
Chong’s Felicity Hotels chain also owns outlets and property across Brisbane.
TREVOR LEE: AUSTRALIA COUNTRY CHOICE GROUP
$1.03b (753m) ranked 124
Billionaire beef baron Trevor Lee, who is married to fashion guru Keri Craig, owns the meatworks operation Australian Country Choice.
In August, it announced it was considering moving its Cannon Hill operations to NSW after a fight broke out about two new businesses moving into the same Rivermakers precinct.
The family business, led by the billionaire, launched a legal appeal arguing the proposed businesses would be located in an industrial buffer zone that prohibited using land for retail or restaurant activities.
The Queensland government intervened and placed a temporary injunction on council approvals in the Morningside area.
After the company’s longstanding exclusive deal with Coles expired in 2017, ACC got into the export sector and now ships 50 per cent of its product overseas.
It processes about 300,000 cattle a year, owns 34 farms and three feedlots that employ 180 people and supplies bio material for human heart valve replacements to the US.
Lee started in business in 1974, six years after he bought his first cattle farm. Lee’s son Anthony is now ACC’s chief executive. Lee also owns property and aviation assets.
BRIAN FLANNERY: WHITE ENERGY
$1.1b ($1.09b) ranked 116
Richlister Brian Flannery made his fortune from coal miner Felix Resources, which he sold in 2010 netting him $500 million.
He now has stakes in a range of businesses including his popular $100 million Elements of Byron resort and spa, which is connected to the Byron Bay township via a $4 million solar-powered train Flannery built himself.
He also owns property projects and power plants. This year he decided to invest more into silica sand miner Metallica as part of a $9.6m capital raising by the Brisbane-based company.
Flannery made the investment through his family firm Ilwella along with sand miner Sibelco and German investor Sparta. Flannery and wife Peggy also own the KTQ Developments property business, and he remains managing director of ASX-listed coal technology company White Energy.
TREVOR ST BAKER
$1.31b (675m) ranked 100
Trevor St Baker owns interests in power stations and fuel supply development businesses. He is director of the St Baker Energy Trust and chair of Sunset Power International.
He is founder and deputy chair of ERM Power Limited, which is where a large part of his fortune comes from.
ERM Power, is the third-largest electricity retailer, and was taken over by Shell in 2019. St Baker’s wealth has grown rapidly since his humble beginnings in the Queensland electricity utilities sector in the 1960s and 1970s.
He worked on building Queensland’s first power station planning department in 1971 and its first Energy Resources Division in 1975.
This year, he turned his hands to two new holdings, the ASX-listed battery technology company Novonix, which has surged in value, and electric vehicle charging firm Tritium, which listed in the US.
He also owns the $50 million St Baker Energy Innovation Fund.
JOHN RICHARDS: JJ RICHARDS AND SONS
$1.49b ($1.24b) ranked 86
J.J. Richards and Sons Pty Ltd was established by Joseph John Richards, when he started his first kerbside collection in Murwillumbah Shire in 1932.
In 1962, the company won the refuse contract at Toowoomba and in 1968 in Redland and Albert Shires.
Today, it is the biggest privately owned waste management company in Australia and collects and processes a range of waste from household to industrial bin services, oil collection and recycling services.
The business made a $126 million net profit last year from $801 million revenue.
JACK LIN AND GORDON FU: TRONDAGE ENTERPRISES; YFG SHOPPING CENTRES
$1.51b ($1.789b) ranked 83
Jack Lin and his father-in-law Gordon Fu, who arrived in Australia from Taiwan, are the largest private owners of shopping malls in Australia – even after Westfield.
Mr Fu, who came to Australia in 1992, reportedly started out painting cinema posters before his entrepreneurial career began in the construction industry.
He also established a fast-food firm called Sun Smile Chicken. Together the pair have built the Trondage business and with their YFG now own 20 centres, including Australia Fair on the Gold Coast and Toowong Village and Tower in Brisbane.
CHRIS WALLIN: QCOAL
$1.89b ($1.92b) ranked 65
Coal billionaire Chris Wallin hauled in $300 million in dividends from his privately-owned QCoal on the back of record coal prices this year.
Wallin’s QCoal Group, which produces both metallurgical and thermal coal, has an interest in four coal mines in Queensland’s Bowen Basin and is the country’s biggest independent coal exploration and mining company.
Wallin, a former geologist with the Queensland public service, established QCoal in 1989. Last financial year, the corporate giant filed a $582.1m after-tax profit with ASIC.
This year’s results are even better with a $491m improvement allowing Mr Wallin to take $300m in dividends. He also owns stakes in several ASX-listed mining companies.
MAHA SINNATHAMBY: SPRINGFIELD CITY GROUP
$1.91b ($1.68b) ranked 61
The businessman and property developer is the mastermind behind the Greater Springfield Development in Ipswich. It is the largest masterplanned community in Australia.
He started his own property business in Perth in 1971, before moving to Queensland in the early 1980s. Sinnathamby and business partner Bob Sharpless bought 2832ha of land southwest of Brisbane in 1992 when it had no roads, transport links or residents.
Today, Springfield has a population of 50,000, a dozen schools, shopping centres and hotels.
Investment bank MA Group is heading a consortium to spend $15 billion to develop Springfield’s CBD, known as the Knowledge Precinct. Approval has already been granted for 5340 apartments.
BRUCE MATHIESON: ALH GROUP
$2.5b ($2.4b) ranked 38
The Mathieson family has been a major player in the Australian pub scene for almost 50 years. Bruce Mathieson Snr has been involved in the hotel industry since 1974.
In 2000, the Bruce Mathieson Group formed a partnership with Woolworths which led to the ALH Group.
Last year, Woolworths bought out his stake in ALH in exchange for a minority stake of 15 per cent in the $13bn ASX-listed Endeavour Group, which owns the ALH chain of pubs and hotels, as well as bottle shop brands Dan Murphy’s and BWS.
Bruce Snr stepped down from the Endeavour Group board and was replaced by son Bruce Jnr, who subsequently left an executive position, with Mathieson remaining Endeavour’s biggest shareholder and on its board as a non-executive director.
Mathieson bought his first hotel in 1975, and has since bought and sold more than 9000 around Australia. He also owns large landholdings on Melbourne’s outskirts.
JOHN VAN LIESHOUT: SUPER A-MART
$256b ($2.45b) ranked 37
Billionaire and Super Amart founder John Van Lieshout started building his wealth when he opened a furniture retail outlet after arriving in Australia from the Netherlands with his parents and 12 siblings in 1960.
That grew into Super Amart, now one of Australia’s biggest retail chains.
But the majority of his wealth has come from property deals. Last year, he increased his property holdings in a popular southside precinct at 520 Kessels Rd, Macgregor, paying $17.5 million for the property.
He sold his stake in the furniture company to a private equity firm in 2006 but retained freehold ownership.
He also owns development company Unison Projects which is overseeing subdivisions in Queensland and New South Wales.
CLIVE PALMER: PALMER LEISURE COOLUM; MINERALOGY
$18.35b ($9.76b) ranked 7
Mining magnate Clive Palmer gets his wealth from iron ore, nickel, and coal holdings, receiving millions in royalties each year.
It is believed the majority of his wealth comes from royalties from a controversial deal with CITIC Pacific over the huge Sino Iron project in Western Australia’s Pilbara.
His major businesses are Mineralogy, Townsville’s Queensland Nickel, the Palmer Coolum Resort on the Sunshine Coast, Palmer Sea Reef Golf Course at Port Douglas, Palmer Colonial Golf Course at Robina, the Palmer Gold Coast Golf Course, also at Robina and Waratah Coal.
He created the Palmer United Party in April 2013, and won the Sunshine Coast seat of Fairfax. He spent more than $60 million in the last federal election.
He also spends millions on legal challenges.
Originally published as From bar tsars, mining magnates and fashionistas, who are the wealthiest people in Queensland? 2022’s rich list has been revealed
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