How a new age of billionaires in Australia are reshaping wealth
The tectonic plates of generational wealth are shifting and whether its proponents are bold and brash or stealth and sophisticated, there is a whole lot of money on the move.
The most interesting element of Jeff Bezos’s recent $40 million Venice matrimonial extravaganza was not the fashion, the furore or the famous faces in attendance, it was the apologies.
Those not present to witness the world’s fourth richest man in the world marry his second bride, writer and astronaut Lauren Sánchez, made a bigger statement than Leonardo DiCaprio hiding under a baseball cap and Kim Kardashian prancing around the sinking city in lingerie.
Not taking away the power and influence of those in attendance, including Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey, but the main game is what is happening away from the celebrity-infested, made-for-social-media soirées. These events and personas – according to the experts – are simply smokescreens for the cultural and economic tectonic shift happening in the one per cent club.
There is a new gilded age coming. One where the “boom boom” brashness of Bezos and other in-your-face billionaires (see: Elon Musk) sits comfortably beside the stealth-wealth philanthropic donations of the Amazon founder’s first wife MacKenzie Scott.
Australia is not immune.
There is an impending handover when it comes to partnership and generational wealth all around the world, thanks to an ageing population and the steady rate of marital separations. In Australia, it’s a growing sector that is seeing financial firms developing new private wealth products and an explosion of private family offices being established to manage the futures of some of our most, and soon-to-be, wealthiest individuals.
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“Private” is the key element of this trend, according to one of the nation’s leading financial minds, Andrew Hagger.
Most of them we’ve never heard of. And that’s just how they like it.
“Back in the day, if someone told you that you were going to a billionaire’s party, you could probably guess the guest list. If you’re invited to a party hosted by a billionaire in five years’ time, there will be people at that party whose names you have no idea of today,” Hagger tells WISH.
A 2021 Productivity Commission report estimated that about $3.5 trillion in assets will be transferred, largely down Australian family trees, by 2050. Earlier this year, broker JBWere revised the actual amount to be as much as $5.4 trillion.
Hagger forecast this also. The former boss of Tattarang and Minderoo – the private investment group and philanthropic foundation, respectively, of the now separated Andrew and Nicola Forrest – and NAB group executive has established his own shop, Famille Capital, where he advises some of Australia’s richest families.
“Succession of wealth is on the rise, particularly here, as Australia has a large proportion of first-generation wealth compared with other countries” says Hagger, adding that first-generation wealth in Australia could be as high as 80 per cent. “What we’re talking about now is seeing second and third-generation children who are now in their twenties and thirties making their moves, and of those that I know, they are really inspiring people. I can’t wait to see what they’re all going to do in the world.”
Hagger, who has years of experience in billion-dollar mergers and acquisitions, will “see” more than most. Privacy, he said, is the one thing these people have in common.
It’s in stark contrast to the brashness on display at the Bezos wedding, an event that replicated the similar nuptials of George Clooney and Amal Alamuddin in the romantic Italian city 11 years ago, minus the public and social outcry.
Trend forecasters are not shocked by the rise of “shameless” and an apparent reversal of the quiet luxury trend that followed the pandemic. In a world where loud is championed – in business, politics and commentary – it’s the “quiet” part that we’re missing. Donald Trump is back in office and has been quick to disrupt everything from foreign aid to foreign trade, and even friendships with the likes of Elon Musk.
Yet this bold administration is without two key lieutenants from the first season: Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner. Both appear to be pursuing private endeavours, popping up on the occasional niche podcast and with Ivanka seemingly acting as her father’s smiling, socially acceptable proxies at certain functions, including the Bezos wedding.
Trump has reportedly added more gold to the Oval Office, accepted some questionable gifts from questionable givers, and treated state meetings like a reality show. We’d be forgiven for thinking vulgarity is back with the vengeance of J.R. Ewing.
As with most cultural shifts, things started popping up in fashion earlier this year – fur at Prada and Fendi, bullet bras at Miu Miu and thigh-high boots by Stella McCartney. Television followed, with Patrick Schwarzenegger and Leslie Bibb’s star turns in the latest season of The White Lotus delivering elements of crass, cringe and conservatism that audiences lapped up. But they also lashed out at it. Much like they did online to the Bezos bonanza.
Trend forecaster Sean Monahan coined the phrase “boom boom”, telling The Guardian that it is how fashion wanted us to look. Monahan – the expert who gave name to the previous trend of “normcore” and predicted the “vibe shift” – said there is more than a touch of 1987 about the world at the moment. “Boom boom,” he said, “is glamour and greed epitomised by the style and mindset of the sleazy, money-saturated world of late ’80s New York.”
1987 was the year that Donald Trump published Trump: The Art of the Deal and Anna Wintour arrived in New York to become the editor of US Vogue. Ms Wintour, always ahead of the cultural curve, announced in June that she is stepping down from her editor-in-chief position. The landmark American magazine is now seeking a new “head of editorial content”. A modern title for a new era; an epoch that is brash, through personalities like Trump, like Bezos and, on the flip side, the scores of social media commentators who criticise them.
That’s the difference between 1987 and now. The peanut gallery who used to
gobble up the rampant consumption of the rich and famous now have powerful (digital) platforms from which to critique and criticise, which is why the salty and sweet, wild and whispered nature of wealth can co-exist in these modern times.
When the final gavel came down on the sale of the original Hermés Birkin at auction for $15 million in July, the online whispers about the new Mrs Sánchez Bezos spread with the speed of Gout Gout. There were reports she – representing the nasty nouveau riche – was the unsuccessful bidder for Jane Birkin’s scuffed, stickered 50-year-old piece of history when it sold to a Japanese consortium. Her “people” had to issue a statement to quell the rumour. No one bothered to instead confirm whether she was, as with most auctions, just driving up the price of the piece of this prestigious piece of old-school glamour.
Then there’s the silent sophistication and refined reticence of those who prefer a quiet life and are not interested in posting for the social media police. Following her divorce, MacKenzie Scott – a key contributor to Amazon’s early success – established Yield Giving to fund her philanthropic endeavours. According to Forbes, as of 2024 Scott has donated close to $30 billion to charity.
While the Kardashians were buying more private jets, Kim Jackson, a person the internet refers to as “Atlassian founder Scott Farquhar’s wife”, was acquiring airports. Jackson heads up the couple’s family office – Skip Capital – an outfit that was an early backer of Canva and now has a stake in Queensland Airports.
“This spirit of entrepreneurialism is alive and well. You’ll find these days that the children of people and partners who have made their money in industries aim to go out and start something that can become big in a completely different sector as they make their own mark,” Hagger says.
On account of this, all the structures around those families and individuals – including institutions and even traditions – then shift. Something we’re now seeing in real and reel time. Whereas the old guard might have courted the media, the next generation would prefer to work and play in the shadows of the spotlight.
“It’s all kept very private, and so it should be. Everyone values their privacy. But through it all, they also want to connect with like-minded people and people with equivalent wealth, power and influence,” Hagger continues. “The dance of how that’s done these days is different to how it was done 50, even 100 years ago, where business was often done through some of the well-established clubs. These days, there are still those well-established clubs, and they’re still thriving, but so too are new forms of clubs, organisations, meeting places and ways of people interacting. It’s a very dynamic world of how a wealthy person lives their lives.”
The epitome of this dynamic would be the aforementioned Elon Musk.
The tech billionaire is no longer sporting his “Make America Great Again” caps or whipping out novelty chainsaws to fire up the MAGA movement. He’s since abandoned the Trump White House to start his own political party in a bid to drive down national debt and give Americans their “freedom back”.
Fashion, too, is evolving just as quickly as Musk’s political proclivities. A new dawn is breaking also at Chanel, Balenciaga and Celine, where new creatives are taking the reins. Back in July, Michael Rider’s first collection for Celine following Hedi Slimane’s exit was a nod to subtle, good taste – scarves, tailoring, appropriate dimensions.
Celine also had surprising, although not shocking, front-row guests such as singer Alanis Morissette and actor Naomi Watts. Comedienne Kristen Wiig was there and her ensemble of jeans and a T-shirt said more than she did, or even needed to.
This story is from the August issue of WISH.
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