Richest 250: Gina Rinehart tops The List as NFT revolution takes off amid technology sector boom
This year’s edition of The List - Australia’s Richest 250 will show how mining and technology are now the country’s two most successful sectors.
Billionaire Gina Rinehart has racked up plenty of firsts of late, as her mining empire booms and more iron ore is dug out and exported than ever before.
So successful is her business that Mrs Rinehart tops this year’s edition of The List - Australia’s Richest 250, ahead of notable business identities including Andrew Forrest, Mike Cannon-Brookes, Anthony Pratt and Clive Palmer.
Mrs Rinehart’s wealth reaches $32.64bn in the 2022 edition of The List, published in a special edition of The Australian on Friday, thanks to a record-breaking $7bn profit for her Hancock Prospecting in 2021.
This year, Australia’s wealthiest person is also part of another notable group in what is a first for The Australian.
Recognising the impact the technology revolution has had on The List, and to help support some of the everyday Australians affected by the recent floods, The Australian is releasing a collection of non-fungible token (NFT) artworks to raise funds for the St Vincent de Paul Society’s Flood Appeal as part of this year’s edition.
The NFT’s are tokens attached to digital artworks commissioned especially for The List and created by illustrator Rebel Challenger. The artworks are of the top 20 richest Australians, from Mrs Rinehart to trucking magnate Lindsay Fox and billionaires such as Canva co-founder Melanie Perkins in between.
There will also be NFTs of five of the new young guns on The List, including Culture Kings co-founder Tahnee Beard - who is one of 29 new names this year.
The auctions of the NFTs will be conducted on OpenSea, an online non-fungible token marketplace.
See The List: Australia’s Richest 250
The full 2022 edition of The List is published on Friday in a special issue contained in The Australian, and it will reveal how new industries like technology and online fashion in Australia are thriving alongside older ones such as manufacturing and property development.
Emerging companies such as Canva and Atlassian sit alongside established firms Hancock, Fortescue Metals Group and Meriton at the top of The List.
More money is being made quicker than ever before, but even the youngest duo in the top 10 - Canva co-founders and husband and wife team Melanie Perkins and Cliff Obrecht, 34 and 36 respectively - went through tough times earlier in their careers.
While the pair rank 8th and 9th on The List with a combined value of $15.89 billion, and the Canva business is valued at more than $55 billion after a huge fundraising round last year, those huge figures looked unattainable only a decade ago.
“We pitched to almost every VC [venture capitalist] in the world,” Obrecht says in an exclusive interview with The List.
“There were some really dark moments.
“You have a spreadsheet with 100 investors, and then you cross them off 10 or 20 at a time, because they’ve all rejected you, and then you have to build the pipeline again. And you get rejected again.”
Canva persevered and has been raising huge amounts of money from investors ever since. As has Mrs Rinehart, who paid off $10bn debt in the same decade Canva grew from nothing into a big name.
Mrs Rinehart tops the 2022 edition of The List with a massive $32.64 billion wealth. Fellow mining magnate Andrew Forrest comes in a close second with wealth of $31.77 billion.
Cardboard box manufacturing magnate Anthony Pratt is in the third position on The List with $27.77bn wealth.
But the top 10 is a story of Australia’s continued mining fortunes juxtaposed with a technology boom. There are four mining magnates in the top 10, with Mrs Rinehart and Mr Forrest joined by Queensland billionaire Clive Palmer in 7th position with estimated wealth of $18.35bn and South African born former Glencore boss Ivan Glasenberg 10th with a $9.10bn fortune.
For the first time, there are also four technology leaders in the top echelons of The List - and each are considerably younger than the billionaires in other industries.
Atlassian co-founders Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar are 4th and 5th with wealth of $26.20 and 25.99 billion respectively for the 42-year-olds.
Rounding out the top 10 is Sydney apartments king Harry Triguboff, who is 6th with wealth of $20.81bn.
While Mr Triguboff is best known for building swathes of properties in his hometown, he is also moving into new territories like Canberra and Melbourne to show that even at 89 it is never too late to show some entrepreneurial spirit.
See The List: Australia’s Richest 250
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