There’s a record 139 billionaires in Australia, here are the new names you might not have heard

There’s a record 139 billionaires in Australia this year, and while many are well known, others have quietly entered the ranks of the wealthy elite.

There’s a record 139 billionaires in Australia this year, and while there are many well-known names among them, there’s some new ones that have quietly entered the ranks of the wealthy elite.

For every Gina Rinehart, James Packer and Andrew Forrest that many people recognise, there’s pub owners, crypto gambling magnates, petrol station proprietors and makers of microphones used around the world that also have become billionaires for the first time.

See the full version of The List - Australia’s Richest 250 on Friday at www.richest250.com.au and in The Australian newspaper.

Here are the new billionaires on The List this year:

Sam Arnaout ($2.30bn)

Pub baron Sam Arnaout outside Hotel Steyne, in Manly. Picture: Justin Lloyd

Arnaout is one of the pub industry’s most active billionaires, amassing a large collection of pubs and hotels in recent years.

His Iris Capital has more than 30 pubs and 20 hotels in its portfolio, as well as a growing number of casino assets. Arnaout last year bought Canberra Casino for $63 million, a year after paying $105 million for the Lasseters Hotel Casino in Alice Springs.

Edward Craven ($2.01bn)

Craven burst onto the business scene last year but has been quietly building one of the biggest online gambling entities in the world for the best part of a decade with his American business partner Bijan Tehrani.

The pair head cryptocurrency casino and sports book Stake.com, which operates in an industry that is banned in Australia.

Profits from the business allowed Craven to pay about $120m for two mansions in Melbourne’s Toorak last year, including the so-called “ghost mansion” that has set empty for several decades.

Terry & Arthur Tzaneros ($1.56bn combined)

The Tzaneros family are behind Australia’s largest privately owned container logistics operator, ACFS Port Logistics.

The business has annual revenue of more than $300m and makes $85m in profits before tax, depreciation and amortisation.

The father and son team started the business in 2005 and it now employs more than 1100 people across Australia

Nick Andrianakos & family ($1.30bn)

Having made his fortune in petrol, Andrianakos and his family have diversified their wealth by making a string of moves into property.

The family business is in the hands of son Theo Andrianakos, now the chief executive across the whole group.

The elder Andrianakos moved to Melbourne from Greece in 1966, bought his first petrol station in 1973 and went on to build the Milemaker chain that he sold to Caltex in a $94 million deal in late 2016.

He kept the freehold over the petrol stations as part of the deal, and is building a hotel in Greece.

Johnny & Markus Kahlbetzer ($1.30bn combined)

Markus (left) and John Kahlbetzer in their Darlinghurst office. Picture: Nic Walker

The Kahlbetzer brothers are now in control of the family fortune, having taken over from their father John. Johnny Kahlbetzer now heads Twynam’s property and other investments in Australia, while younger brother Markus is in charge of venture capital firm BridgeLane.

Charles Gibbon ($1.19bn)

Gibbon’s wealth is mostly found in shares of Richard White’s tech success story WiseTech Global, whose board he joined 20 years ago. He remains a director but has also had a diverse career in the financial services sector. Gibbon trained as an econometrician, worked as an analyst for a London stockbroker and later ran his own funds management business.

Greg Coffey ($1.12bn)

Coffey’s investment firm Kirkoswald now has about $US7bn in funds under management, marking a successful return to investing following his temporary retirement a decade ago after he’d earned his initial fortune in London at GLG – where he was nicknamed “wizard of Oz”. He paid $105m for a giant home in the Hamptons last year, adding to the $US50m he had shelled out for an Upper East Side townhouse in Manhattan in 2021.

Peter Freedman ($1.10bn)

Freedman Electronics sells its Rode brand of microphones around the world, making the popular product from a $60m plant in Sydney’s Silverwater. Freedman dropped out of high school to run the family business Freedman Electronics when his father Henry fell ill, going on to build a large global enterprise with annual revenue of more than $300m.

Kim Cannon ($1.08bn)

A die-hard fan of British rock legends Pink Floyd, Cannon owns one of Australia’s biggest non-bank mortgage lenders.

Brisbane business Firstmac services almost 60,000 customers across the country and manages a loan portfolio of about $16bn. Firstmac’s pre-tax profits reached $100 million in 2022.

Christian Beck ($1.03bn)

It was Beck’s lawyer father who set him on his path in business, asking him in 1992 to help him with a system he was developing to help run his conveyancing matters more profitably. Beck would teach himself to code and eventually started LEAP Legal Software and then search provider Infotrack, which provides services to the legal profession and access to regulatory document databases.

Ian Malouf ($1.03bn)

Ian Malouf and his daughter Ellie aboard their superyacht Mischief. Picture: John Feder

Malouf is enjoying the spoils of the wealth he has amassed in the waste management industry, splurging on superyachts and a string of Sydney properties in recent years.

He founded Dial-a-Dump with a single truck and shovel in 1984, eventually selling it into Bingo Industries in a $577m cash and shares deal in 2021.

He remains on the privatised Bingo board, and still has waste property holdings in Sydney’s east. He mostly devotes his time to superyacht chartering business Ahoy Club, which rents out his collection of boats, including the 73m Coral Ocean he bought for about $US50m in 2019 and then spent another $50m refurbishing

Huang Bingwen & family ($1.02bn)

Huang’s fortune is based on his holding in Shantou Dongfeng Printing, a manufacturer of paper packaging for tobacco and other industries in China.

He and his two sons also have Australian citizenship.

The family made headlines in 2016 with the $60 million purchase of the Point Piper mansion Altona in Sydney.

Rod Spooner & family ($1bn)

The Spooner family owns the huge Carribean Park commercial district in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs, which includes an office park, hotel, industrial properties, and other facilities such as restaurants, a gym and park space.

The land was initially used for the Carribean Gardens and Markets for decades after the Spooner family had bought 300 acres in 1945