The List — Australia’s Richest 250: top 10 for 2019 revealed

Anthony Pratt tops inaugural edition of The List — Australia’s Richest 250. | TOP 10 REVEALED

Anthony Pratt … no.1 on The List — Australia’s Richest 250. Picture: Nic Walker

Billionaire Anthony Pratt is the richest person in Australia, topping the inaugural edition of The List — Australia’s Richest 250 with a fortune of $13.14 billion.

Mr Pratt just beats mining magnate Gina Rinehart to first place on The List, which is published in full in tomorrow’s The Weekend Australian.

More: Jerry Schwartz | Justin Hemmes | Paul Blackburne | Kayla Itsines and Tobi Pearce

Mrs Rinehart’s wealth is $13.12 billion, primarily from her Hancock Prospecting mining and agriculture empire.

Mr Pratt has overseen the doubling in revenue and profit of cardboard box maker and recycling giant Visy in Australia and Pratt Industries in the United States, but tells The Australian he wants to keep both businesses growing strongly.

“What keeps me motivated is my children and my legacy. I believe in the phrase ‘keep going’. You only get one shot and I believe I’ve been given a rare opportunity.”

He and Mrs Rinehart have both successfully and quickly grown their respective businesses in recent years. Pratt Industries in particular has grown quickly in the US, where it has enjoyed the benefits of the Trump tax cuts and the ability to write off large capital expenditure in one year.

Mrs Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting is now one of the country’s biggest private earners and taxpayers and her crown jewel Roy Hill iron ore mine made a $558 million profit last year.

Mr Pratt shares ownership of Visy with sisters Heloise Pratt and Fiona Geminder, while one quarter of Hancock Prospecting is attributed to Mrs Rinehart’s daughter Bianca, whose interest in the company is via the Hope Margaret Hancock Trust.

Gina Rinehart.

Third on The List, with wealth of $12.31 billion, is Sydney apartments king Harry Triguboff. While residential house prices are falling and sales for his Meriton are slowing, Mr Triguboff has concentrated on keeping more of his units to rent out and use as serviced apartments. He could have a portfolio of 10,000 apartments under his ownership by the end of 2019.

Atlassian co-founders Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar are fourth and fifth on The List, each with a $9.01 billion fortune. Shares in their NASDAQ-listed software firm have surged in the past 12 months and the pair have broken Sydney house price records in the past two years by paying $100 million and $71 million respectively for their adjacent Point Piper mansions.

The List — Australia’s Richest 250 is free with your copy of The Weekend Australian tomorrow.

Frank Lowy is next on The List in sixth position with wealth of $8.92 billion. The Westfield co-founder still has a large shareholding in Scentre Group, which operates Westfield shopping centres in Australia and New Zealand, but has most of his fortune is now found in the private Lowy Family Group after the $US24.7 billion sale of Westfield to French company Unibail-Rodamco last year.

In seventh position in Hong Kong-based property magnate Hui Wing Mau. His $6.83 billion fortune is found mostly in Shimao Property Holdings, which builds commercial and residential property projects in China. He has Australian citizenship after a stint at the University of South Australia studying for an MBA in the early 1990s.

Eighth is Andrew Forrest, the chairman of Fortescue Metals Group. His wealth is $7.43 billion. The man known as “Twiggy” has a large shareholding in FMG and also owns the Harvey Beef and Harvest Road agriculture businesses.

Ninth is Ivan Glasenberg, the Swiss-based South African-born chief executive of global commodities giant Glencore. His $6.76 billion wealth is mostly in Glencore shares. Glasenberg took Australian citizenship after moving here in 1986 to run Glencore’s Asian coal commodity division.

Rounding out the top 10 is Melbourne shopping centre magnate John Gandel, who has wealth of $6.22 billion. Half of his wealth alone is found in his 50 per cent stake in the giant Chadstone shopping centre, which he bought for $37 million in 1983.

The full edition of The List — Australia’s Richest 250 is published in the Weekend Australian tomorrow and online at theaustralian.com.au/rich250