The List - Richest 250 debutants: crypto gambling king Ed Craven leads new names

Australia’s youngest business leaders are making big money from cryptocurrency gambling, non-fungible-tokens, power tools and selling mortgages. See The List’s newest members.

Fund manager Peter Cooper (with wife Suparna Bhasin), Immutable co-founders Robbie and Josh Ferguson, Simone and Nicky Zimmermann.

Australia’s youngest business leaders are making big money from cryptocurrency gambling, non-fungible-tokens, power tools and selling mortgages.

And fashion too.

Sydney sisters Nicky and Simone Zimmermann debut on The List - Australia’s Richest 250 this year, arriving in style with a $600m fortune from their eponymous fashion label.

Don’t miss your copy of The List: Australia’s Richest 250, exclusively in The Australian on Friday, March 24 and online at rich250.com.au.

Their Zimmermann fashion label has become a huge export success story, making the pair and their Italian private equity backers big profits from more than $400m annual revenue.

“We have never had anyone to follow, so we have always had to forge our own path, and that has been good for us,” Nicky Zimmermann told WISH magazine in a recent interview commemorating the brand’s 30th anniversary.

“We have always relied on our gut decisions, what feels right for us and for our families, because this is a family business.”

Meanwhile, Australia has its first cryptocurrency gambling billionaire with 27-year-old Edward Craven bursting into ranks of the country’s wealthy elite with a bumper $2.01bn fortune.

But Craven is not the only millennial to arrive on The List this year.

Ed Craven. Picture: Julian Kingma

The youngest newcomer and youngest person on the list overall is Robbie Ferguson, co-founder of Immutable with brother James. Their combined wealth is an estimated $750m.

Immutable which has built a platform for other companies to operate non-fungible token (NFT) businesses. Immutable has attracted plenty of venture capital funding, with a series C round in March last year valuing it at $3.5bn.

Immutable co-founders Robbie and Josh Ferguson. Source: Supplied.

More recently, Immutable has made headlines for cutting 11 per cent of its staff as the technology downturn takes hold in its sector.

Other notable debuts include the Bey brothers, Elvis and Jason, of the highly successful Sydney Tools retail business that the duo, 37 and 35 respectively, started after helping in their parents tool repair shop when they were kids.

Elvis and Jason Bey.

The duo hail from Sydney’s western suburbs and have built one the country’s largest wholesalers and retailers of industrial tools and accessories. They have 70 outlets and plan to open another 10 outlets.

Sydney Tools had a net profit of almost $60m in 2022 from $716m revenue in 2022, according to documents lodged with the corporate regulator.

Craven Is the co-founder of online cryptocurrency gambling business Stake.com, which he started with his American business partner Bijan Tehrani only six years ago.

So successful has Stake been that Craven shelled out $120m on two Toorak mansions in Melbourne last year, including a record $80m for the so-called “ghost mansion” that has laid idle for two decades.

The other debutant billionaire alongside Craven is another non-bank lending founder, Kim Cannon of Brisbane firm Firstmac. A huge Pink Floyd fan, Cannon has built a fortune worth an estimated $1.08bn.

Firstmac founder Kim Cannon at his Brisbane headquarters. Picture: Mark Cranitch

There are also some notable names returning to The List, including fund manager Peter Cooper and Paul Holmes a Court, the son of the late famous corporate raider Robert.

The founder of Cooper Investors, which manages more than $10bn in investor funds, Cooper has become a devotee of meditation, and what he describes is the calmness and peace that can be found in a life that honours mind, body and spirit - which has also helped bring a focus to his work.

“My issues with work were around too much intensity, and expectations of myself. That led me to being impatient, overbearing at times (and) stressed,” says Cooper in an interview in The List edition.

Peter Cooper and his wife Suparna Bhasin, in Melbourne. Picture: Julian Kingma

Meanwhile, this year’s edition of The List also features two brothers-in-law, who work together but insist they don’t take business home with them.

ColCap co-founders Andrew Chepul and Ilias Pavlopoulos debut with an estimated joint fortune of $570m, from their successful and highly profitable non-bank lending business.

The duo have survived the global financial crisis and insist they are well placed to navigate their way through the current high interest rate environment.

And they also say they can survive working alongside each other.

Andrew is very good at (deal) structuring, finance and treasury, whereas my background is more project management, customer focus and customer experience,” says Pavlopoulos. “So we complement each other really well.”

In basic terms, that means Chepul is the deal maker of the team and Pavlopoulos keeps the business running – a delineation of roles that extends to the ColCap head office in Sydney.

“I sit on this side of the floor and he’s on the other,” Pavlopoulos says with a laugh, gesturing to one side of the building. Chepul quickly retorts: “He’s a people person and I’m over with finance and treasury!”

The 2023 edition of The List – Australia’s Richest 250 is published on Friday in The Australian and online at richest250.com.au