Tech boom builds new fortunes: winners and losers from Australia’s wealthy elite in 2021
The technology boom has fattened the wallets of many of Australia’s wealthy elite this year ... but not everyone had a good 2021. Here’s how our rich listers fared on the markets rollercoaster.
It has been the year of the technology boom, with record valuations for private firms and shares in listed companies like Nasdaq-listed Atlassian surging so much that founders Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar were catapulted to the top echelon of The List – Australia’s Richest 250 for the first time.
Atlassian shares have fallen from their early November peak but are still up about 60 per cent – or more than $50bn in overall value.
For Australia’s wealthy elite it has mostly been a good year, with the ASX All Ordinaries up 11 per cent since January 1 amid a host of good performances among mining companies, car sellers and retailers.
But not everyone has had a good 2021.
Here some winners and losers of what has been quite a ride on the markets this year.
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WINNERS
Trevor St Baker
So big is the energy industry veteran’s stake in ASX-listed Novonix that he would qualify for The List – Australia’s Richest 250 from it alone.
Novonix has quickly become a force in the battery technology sector, with its shares surging by about 670 per cent since January 1. St Baker’s shareholding is worth more than $600m.
He has spent 50 years in the energy sector, deriving much of his wealth from establishing ERM Power, now the country’s third-largest electricity retailer, which was taken over by Shell in 2019.
Gina Rinehart
Not only has the billionaire mining magnate had a big year for her own private interests, with her Hancock Prospecting lodging one of the biggest profits in recent corporate memory, but she has also done well on the market.
Rinehart’s Hancock has established an equity investment portfolio during the year with a focus on ‘‘future metals’’ including copper, rare earths and lithium, and the initial $669m investment has risen to $1.07bn. A big winner has been lithium start-up Vulcan, up 330 per cent since January 1.
Kerry Stokes
Free-to-air television isn’t dead yet and billionaire media magnate Stokes has seen his beloved Seven West Media bounce back in the last 12 months.
Seven West Media’s TV ratings are up and its shares have increased about 97 per cent this year.
The business has just got the green light from the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission to complete the $130m acquisition of Prime Media by Christmas.
Stokes owns the bulk of his SWM shares via his Seven Group Holdings, which also has mining and building services assets.
It has fallen 8 per cent since January.
Brett Blundy
The billionaire retailer is on a winner with his jewellery chain Lovisa, which keeps posting big profits despite rising freight costs and Covid lockdowns that have hit its 570 stores across 15 countries around the world. Lovisa shares are up more than 75 per cent this year.
Richard White
Move over Macquarie Group. White’s logistics software firm is the new millionaires’ factory. WiseTech shares are up 77 per cent this year, and founder White is set to count three fellow shareholders – long-time directors Charles Gibbon, Michael Gregg and Maree Isaacs – as members of The List.
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LOSERS
Ruslan Kogan
Shares in Kogan’s eponymous e-commerce business lost their market darling status this year, after an initial pandemic-induced online shopping frenzy saw the firm stock up on products but then incur big storage costs, sending the share price into free fall. Kogan shares are down about 55 per cent this year.
Hamish Douglass
Douglass lost his billionaire status as shares in his funds management firm Magellan fell after the group’s stock-picking performance declined. That was even before news broke this month of Douglass and his wife splitting, putting a question mark over his stake. They have said they are not selling.
Kerr Neilson
Platinum Asset Management shares are down 33 per cent this year, continuing a trend that has hit fund manager Neilson for several years. Investors took almost $2bn from the value manager’s funds in October.
Andrew Abercrombie
Abercrombie’s firm Humm Group promotes itself as Australia’s original fintech, but shares in the leasing and rental finance group are down 33 per cent in 2021.
Andrew Forrest
It is hard to call someone worth more than $25bn a loser, but a fall in the iron ore price has hit the stock of Forrest’s mining giant Fortescue. Shares in the company are down 22 per cent this year, as Forrest pursues a strategy of turning subsidiary Fortescue Future Industries into a green hydrogen energy giant.
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