Richest Queenslanders: Kim Cannon a new billionaire as Clive Palmer’s wealth gets even bigger
Mining dominates the top ranks of Queensland’s richest residents, but a rock ’n’ roll fan running a finance empire with his daughter is the biggest new name this year. See the list.
Queensland has a new billionaire, with Firstmac founder Kim Cannon joining the ranks of the country’s wealthy elite this year.
A diehard fan of British rock legends Pink Floyd - whose big hits appropriately included Money - Cannon heads one of the biggest non-bank lenders in Australia with Firstmac growing into a financial powerhouse that accounts for much of his estimated $1.08bn wealth.
The business includes the loans.com.au arm built from scratch in 2011 by daughter Marie Mortimer, which now accounts for about half of Firstmac’s loan book.
Firstmac services almost 60,000 customers across the country and manages a loan portfolio of about $16bn. The company’s pre-tax profits reached $100m in 2022.
All of which is a far cry from when Cannon launched Lease National Finance, an equipment finance firm, in 1979 with wife Sia.
“It was a two-person show with (wife) Sia for a number of years. We used to work seven days a week. I’d travel in the early days up to north Queensland to do earthmoving equipment and she’d do all the documents and lodging all the applications when I got back,” Cannon previously told The Courier Mail.
Mining dominates Queensland’s contribution to the top echelon of The List, including some big rises for coal miners.
1. Clive Palmer ($20.40bn)
Palmer recently had a big court win over Chinese mining firm CITIC that could yield him another $750m. He already receives more than $600m annually from royalties and says he will spend $100m on the next federal election campaign. Palmer also says he will soon settle on the $1.5bn sale of his Queensland Nickel refinery to a Swiss-based investment firm.
2. Chris Wallin ($3.22bn)
It has been a big year for Wallin, as booming coal prices led to huge profits and dividend payments. He raked in $300m in dividends from his privately-owned QCoal, has an interest in four coal mines in Queensland’s Bowen Basin, producing a mix of metallurgical and thermal coal, and rode record prices last financial year to book a $582.1m net tax profit.
3. John van Lieshout ($2.70bn)
Van Lieshout started in retail as a cleaner at a Brisbane furniture store, before going on to create a giant of the industry. He made the basis of his fortune with the $500m sale of the Super Amart chain to private equity in 2006, but cannily retained ownership over the freehold of the stores. His property holdings have since expanded to development company Unison Projects and his investment arm JVL Investment.
4. Maha Sinnathamby ($2.10bn)
Sinnathamby has appointed Morgan Stanley to find a partner to help finish what will be at least another $40bn spend over two decades at his Springfield masterplanned city near Brisbane. Springfield, a city of more than 53,000 residents southwest of the capital, is where a dozen schools, shopping centres, hotels and hospitals and other facilities have already been built by Sinnathamby and business partner Bob Sharpless.
5. Sam Chong ($2.06bn)
Chong’s coking coal miner Jellinbah made a huge $1.92bn profit in 2022, which accounts for his increasing wealth. Jellibah owns its Queensland mines with subsidiaries of Japanese group Marubeni and the global mining giant Anglo-American. The Malaysian-born Chong has worked in the Queensland mining sector for decades and last year also marks 55 years since he arrived in Australia.
Mining magnate Gina Rinehart tops the The List as the wealthiest person in Australia this year with a fortune of more than $30bn.
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