Richest 250, 2021: meet our wealthiest youngsters worth $18.5bn between them
They’re among the biggest names in business, and under the age of 40. They are amassing fortunes at an incredible rate.
Meet the hottest collection of wealthy technology gurus, mining heirs and property magnates under 40.
They’ve ridden the tech boom, changed the way business is done around the world, surfed the surging iron ore price and built luxury apartments in the best locations.
This year’s edition of The List: Australia’s Richest 250, features 14 of the most successful young names in business across the country, worth a cool $18.5bn between them.
The 14 include 10 technology leaders, two mining heirs and two property identities, who have emerged on to the list of Australia’s wealthy elite quicker than almost anyone in history.
The youngest member of The List this year is Nick Molnar, 29, the name behind ‘buy now, pay later’ sensation Afterpay.
Molnar vaults into the ranks of the billionaires for the first time after his wealth jumped by more than $2.4bn to a whopping $3.20bn thanks to the stunning share price of Afterpay.
He is both the youngest and wealthiest of those aged under 40, and the only 20-something on The List.
Shangjin (Jin) Lin is the next youngest on The List at 32. He shares his $898m wealth with his mother Junhui, and they own a business in Aqualand Projects that has property assets and projects across Sydney with a collective end value of about $5 billion.
Tech sensation Melanie Perkins is aged 33 and shares her $2.5bn wealth with husband and Canva co-founder Cliff Obrecht.
Perkins encapsulates the new breed of tech leader. She has two big aims: “One, to build one of the world’s most valuable companies and, two, to do the best we can. I hope with the opportunity that has been afforded to us we can use it to bring a little more equality to the world,” Perkins previously told The Australian.
Two of Gina Rinehart’s daughters, Ginia Rinehart and Hope Welker, have wealth of $2.73bn each attributed to them. Their valuation is from the minority stake of the giant Hancock Prospecting apportioned to Mrs Rinehart’s four children.
There are several new young debutants on The List, including BigCommerce co-founder Mitchell Harper, 38, who saw his business float on the NASDAQ exchange late last year. His shareholding accounts for the bulk of his $863m valuation.
Another “buy now, pay later” identity in Larry Diamond of Zip Co, aged 39, debuts on The List with a $486m fortune, as does 38-year-old Ruslan Kogan of e-commerce sensation Kogan.com. His wealth is estimated at $543m.
The biggest debut though is 39-year-old Laurence Escalante, with an estimated $2.15bn net worth. His Virtual Gaming Worlds is more profitable than the likes of Envato, Canva and Atlassian combined.
“The Australian technology sector is changing the world,” Escalante says in an exclusive interview in The List, published in The Weekend Australian in a special edition this Saturday, March 20. “VGW is part of that emerging success story.”
Perennials in Owen Kerr, the 37-year-old co-founder of foreign exchange broker Pepperstone, and Ori Allon, 38, co-founder of New York property tech firm Compass, are also on The List again this year.
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The full 2021 edition of The List: Australia’s Richest 250 is published by The Weekend Australian on Saturday, March 20. For all the secrets of our richest individuals, visit https://www.theaustralian.com.au/rich250.
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