NT’s top 10 most powerful business people revealed for 2022
In what has been a year of recovery for Territory businesses post-Covid, new players have been able to force their way onto the top 10 list. Find out who made the list.
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There are businesses and business people who are part of the Territory landscape and despite fresh names rising towards the top, some will never lose their relevance in the NT.
There are businesses and business people who are part of the Territory landscape and despite fresh names rising towards the top, some will never lose their relevance in the NT.
Today, we reveal the 10 most powerful businesses and business people in the Northern Territory in the lead up to the NT News’ 120 Most Powerful list.
Not surprisingly, Paspaley is one of those stalwarts that continues to deliver in the NT, along with Sitzler that will continue to dominate as they win contract after contract with Defence.
But some new faces did emerge in 2022 who will be forces to be reckoned with in 2023, such as Warren Ebert who is buying up a storm in the NT.
But where will they end up on the final Most Powerful 120 list?
The series of top 10s will culminate in the countdown to the much-anticipated 120 Most Powerful.
10. Iris Capital
If the Top End has Warren Ebert and Sentinel Property Group, Central Australia has Arnaout and Iris Capital – a big investor that has backed the potential of the Territory and put money where his mouth is.
Iris has been building on its hospitality assets since 1995 and this financial year the group is expected to be in charge of 3000 luxury apartments nationally, including hundreds in Central Australia.
Led by rich-lister Arnaout, Iris Capital bought Lasseters Casino from its Singapore-based owner in October 2021 and within months announced a $70m upgrade on its newly acquired asset.
In July, Iris he picked up the Todd Tavern and Gap View Hotel from local family the Di Loechels.
Arnaout owns more than 30 pubs and 20 hotels nationally – most of those in Sydney – but is bullish in his confidence of Alice Springs.
“Iris Capital is excited about the opportunity to revitalise Lasseters by transforming it into the international-standard offering which Alice Springs deserves,” he said earlier this year.
9. Mick Burns
Former number one on the NT News’ Most Powerful list winner and perennial top-20 entrant, Burns has been thrust into the spotlight in 2022 more than he’d ever want and it is likely he will remain there throughout 2023.
The multi-discipline millionaire is involved in numerous enterprises but at the moment much of the focus is on his alleged presence at the site of a chopper crash that killed Outback Wrangler favourite Chris Wilson, near the King River in West Arnhem Land.
Burns has lived in Darwin since 1981 and was a police officer before venturing into the private sector in a big way.
He has owned and operated hotels since 1985 and invested in the Territory during a quiet time economically when he established Crocosaurus Cove on Mitchell St in 2009, which became a hit with interstate and international visitors.
The country’s largest captive crocodile owner, it’s believed there are in excess of 100,000 crocodiles at his farms.
Burns’ contract with Hermes fashion house had him buying hundreds of hectares in the Territory to develop a fully-sustainable crocodile farm.
He sold the Casuarina Club to Sentinal’s Warren Ebert for $17m earlier this year.
8. Warren Ebert
Ebert is a new entrant in a largely established list of prominent business people who have made Darwin’s property landscape their own.
Managing director of Queensland-based Sentinel Property Group, Ebert made his first bold steps into the Darwin property scene in 2016 when he bought the CasCom building in Casuarina for $34m.
The following year he bought Jacana House for $60.75m and Arnhemica House in suburban Parap for $9.5m.
This was Sentinel’s entree to the main course, in February finalising purchase of Casuarina Square from GPT for a whopping $418m.
Believed to be the largest non-pastoral property transfer in Territory history, Ebert has plans to transform the centre into a defacto CBD with a residential component adding to the centre’s core retail function.
His first big plan is to relocate the bus transit centre further along Trower Rd to free up land to expand the centre footprint.
Ebert (pronounced with a soft ‘e’), followed up Casuarina Square with the $17m purchase of the Casuarina Club and, last month, the $280m acquisition of Caneland Central shopping centre in Mackay.
Sentinel is Australia’s largest commercial property owner in Northern Australia.
7. Halikos
Halikos is arguably the company with the largest business footprint across the Territory with fingers in many business pies across hospitality, real estate, construction supplies and manufacturing.
The extent of their reach is surprising.
Solis Real Estate, which recently opened out of the Charles Darwin Centre in Smith St, is a Halikos company, as is NT Fastners, Steeline GRP, Lizards Sports Bar and Crab Claw Island Resort.
Halikos Roofing is another arm of the Group, which would come in handy for development of suburban Northcrest at the old Berrimah Farm.
H on Smith Street, 105 Mitchell Street and the Akoya development in Fannie Bay are all Halikos projects.
One of their 2022 flagship project’s is the new Nightcliff Police Station – probably the Territory’s largest – and more activity is anticipated for Charles Darwin University’s CBD campus, which is expected to open next year.
No project is too big or small for the company that is in the process of renovating The Frontier Hotel, one of Darwin’s oldest pubs.
John Halikos and Shane Dignan, the two main players behind the company, appear to have weathered the disappointment of last year’s loss in its legal action against Inpex over construction of H105.
6. Brett Dixon
It’s been a heck of a two years for this Darwin builder.
Eighteen months ago his reputation was on the line after a damning ICAC report into his company Jaytex Construction’s role in securing a multi-million dollar NT government grant to build the Fannie Bay Turf Club grandstand.
Built on budget and on time, the then chief minister Michael Gunner forced Dixon and the Turf Club board to resign.
Within a year and after legal challenges by several board members including Dixon, the ICAC report was removed from the watchdog’s website.
In the process of repairing his reputation, Dixon announced in June he was selling Berrimah Corporate Park, his best-known Darwin asset, for a cool $80m to South Australia’s Southern Cross Equity.
He also bought Hidden Valley Tavern and after an extensive renovation, rebranded it Midway Tavern.
5. Jape Family
While Indonesia’s 1975 invasion of East Timor bought an extended period of occupancy to our nearest neighbour, the Northern Territory benefited from the wave of immigration that followed the forced takeover.
Jape Kong Su was one of dozens of Chinese-East Timorese who fled for their lives after Indonesia’s crackdown and before long he started Jape, which has become one of the Territory’s most recognisable brands.
Jape Homemaker Village is about the closest Darwin has to a southern-style shopping mall with a broad range of retail outlets servicing the Territory from footwear to futons.
It all began in 1977 when the family purchased Hotel Singapore in Fannie Bay and the retail business began as a home-grown entity selling locally made timber furniture in Cavenagh St. Since East Timor’s won back its independence in 2002, the Japes have opened the country’s largest shopping centre and have contributed to its post-Indonesian reconstruction.
4. Coleman family
Given their long involvement in the Top End’s hospitality scene, it’s worth remembering the Colemans began their business life in the Territory as printers and the Cavanagh St press is a reminder of their earlier contribution to the NT economy.
More recently though, they’ve been keeping locals and tourists fed and watered at the Landmark@Gateway, Breezes at Muirhead and since November 2021 have been managing the Great Northern Hotel in Byron Bay.
But the Colemans are one of a number of other families in this list who regularly re-invest in Darwin and their latest plans – if approved – promises to revitalise the Daly St end of Mitchell St.
The Colemans want to open a new venue where Ducks Nuts and the BCC cinema were.
The drawings look spectacular and here’s hoping it goes ahead.
3. Randazzo family
Only a handful of Territorians were in business when the Randazzos made their entry into the commercial world in the early 1950s – and it’s doubtful many have outlasted them.
Father Tony got the ball rolling in 1954 and has passed the business onto sons Carlo and Paolo, who have steadily grown the company’s business and commercial profile ever since. Their Territory portfolio reads like a phone book.
They own 66 Smith St in Darwin, Highway House in Palmerston, the Randazzo Centre in Katherine, Palmerston Plus in Palmerston and 9 Cavenagh St.
Many Territorians would recall the early 2000s when the NT economy was in the middle of a dramatic economic slump and the Randazzos built the Mitchell Centre on the corner of Mitchell and Bennett streets in Darwin’s CBD, at the same time providing much-needed stimulus for the ailing economy.
2. Sitzler
A few years ago after decades of discussion, Master Builders NT and other key stakeholders persuaded the Department of Defence that the NT had the capacity to manage the big projects that would otherwise be awarded to interstate businesses.
Sitzler has forged a reputation as the go-to company for Defence projects in the Territory, currently overseeing the $747m Ranges Upgrades project redeveloping Defence bases at Robertson Barracks, Bradshaw Station, Kangaroo Flats and Mount Bundey.
The Territory business is also working on the Larrakeyah Base entry project and involved in the AIR7000 Maritime Patrol Aircraft Replacement project.
The company was formed in 1976 and has been owned by Steve Margetic and Michael Sitzler for the past 30 years.
Sitzler has come a long way from its days building in some of the most remote locations in Australia and attributes its success to honesty, integrity and being respectful to staff and trade partners.
1. Paspaley
More than five decades on, Paspaley Group is still the brightest light in the Territory’s business crown.
Refugees from Greece after World War One, the Paspaley family arrived in Australia in 1919, stopping in Cossack on the Western Australian coast where scion Nicholas Paspaley Sr learnt to harvest pearls.
Grandson Nicholas Paspaley Jr who is chief executive and executive director, has grown the business to the point where just 40 per cent of the company’s turnover is pearling related, with its focus now also on aviation, retail, pastoral holdings and commercial property.
Among its portfolios are a number of marquee holdings in New South Wales including Thornthwaite Property and Melaleuca Station.
Inexplicably omitted from 2022’s Financial Review richest 200 list, the company’s status as the Territory’s richest home-grown corporation is assured.
The company is partnering with the NT government to deliver the long-awaited shiplift at East Arm despite the project cost blowing out from $400m to $515m.
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