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The Rich 250 list special : The inside track · The Money Puzzle

0:08
Speaker 1: Hello, one, Welcome to The Australian's Money Puzzled podcast. I'm
0:11
Speaker 1: James Kirkby. Welcome aboard everybody. Just before we start the show,
0:15
Speaker 1: I would like to invite everyone who might be thinking
0:17
Speaker 1: of sending in a question. And we get questions all
0:20
Speaker 1: the time every day and they're very welcome. But you
0:23
Speaker 1: now have a new facility that if you have a question,
0:27
Speaker 1: you can send it in the form of a voice
0:29
Speaker 1: memo and we'll broadcast your voice asking your question live
0:34
Speaker 1: on air. It's a great idea from our producer Liah Sammagloup,
0:37
Speaker 1: and I think you should take advantage of it. Okay,
0:40
Speaker 1: now we have one or two have come in already,
0:41
Speaker 1: which is great. Let's have a few more and we'll
0:44
Speaker 1: get them rolling very soon. I think it'll be terrific
0:47
Speaker 1: sort of development down the show. Now, today's show is
0:50
Speaker 1: one of my favorite shows of the year. My guest
0:53
Speaker 1: is John sten Solti's the editor, of course, of the
0:56
Speaker 1: Rich to Fifty List, which is out Friday, the twenty
1:01
Speaker 1: first of March. John and I go back a long way,
1:03
Speaker 1: long long way back to we go so far back
1:06
Speaker 1: that we worked on the magazine. Everyone has forgotten how
1:08
Speaker 1: about that. That would be one way to describe the
1:12
Speaker 1: working relationship. And I've just had a look at this
1:14
Speaker 1: great new edition of the Rich to Fifty. There's got
1:18
Speaker 1: this guy on the cover, Lawrence Escalante, of this virtual
1:23
Speaker 1: gaming group, and he seems to be I thought he
1:25
Speaker 1: was throwing money around, but he's throwing cards around standing
1:28
Speaker 1: on this infinity pool. It rivals last year's unforgettable cover
1:32
Speaker 1: of Lambeauman Adrian Portelly eating a burger on the bonnet
1:37
Speaker 1: of his Lamborghini. That particularly classic shot you had their
1:41
Speaker 1: last year, John Hawaii. And how's the whole list going
1:44
Speaker 1: for you?
1:45
Speaker 2: Very well? James, thank you and Lawrence and several members
1:49
Speaker 2: of this list probably weren't even in business when we
1:51
Speaker 2: started working together. I want to say how long ago.
1:55
Speaker 2: I just both, but.
1:56
Speaker 1: I've met fortunes during our careers. But it's great fun
2:00
Speaker 1: watching them, John, because I do follow the list very closely,
2:04
Speaker 1: and we've got him in the studio in Sydney today.
2:07
Speaker 1: It's marvelous to be able to do a special show
2:09
Speaker 1: on it. There's so many strands to this, John. So
2:12
Speaker 1: this guy undercover Escalante. If I look at the top
2:16
Speaker 1: of the list and I'm assuming that most of our
2:18
Speaker 1: listeners know, by the way already who is on the
2:21
Speaker 1: top of the list. Because the very rich, the sort
2:24
Speaker 1: of super rich of Australia to some extent, it doesn't change. John,
2:27
Speaker 1: just tell us who the top three or four are,
2:29
Speaker 1: just to remind everybody.
2:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, I mean Jane and Royan high that
2:32
Speaker 2: Morning Magnate is number one round forty six billion dollars.
2:35
Speaker 2: It's a huge amount. Handcock Prospecting is a financial powerhouse.
2:39
Speaker 2: We know that missus Royan hudders if he ran callser
2:41
Speaker 2: is extremely wealthy.
2:43
Speaker 1: She's become very high profile, and she was a low
2:45
Speaker 1: profile for a long time. People didn't even know who
2:47
Speaker 1: she was. They knew the Hancock family. But she's really
2:49
Speaker 1: become high profile.
2:51
Speaker 2: She is, she is becoming higher profile without really you know,
2:55
Speaker 2: saying a lot, if that makes sense. She's starting to
2:57
Speaker 2: sort of throw away around a bit politically. You know,
2:59
Speaker 2: she's backing pit parties, being a very big Donald Trump fan,
3:02
Speaker 2: for example in America. Yeah, she's not the one to
3:04
Speaker 2: sort of sit down and do a tell all interview
3:06
Speaker 2: unfortunately anytime soon. But you never know.
3:08
Speaker 1: You have a question, you do I suppose, yeah, of.
3:11
Speaker 2: Course, And I've seen her at the Olympics, and she
3:13
Speaker 2: does all sorts of other different things. So yeah, she's
3:15
Speaker 2: number one by a mile, right, a perennial one until
3:18
Speaker 2: the are all price plunges. I'm not sure it ever will, James.
3:21
Speaker 2: Maybe that's another topic for another day.
3:22
Speaker 1: But what I would say, it never would. But I
3:24
Speaker 1: mean at the price that she can produce the iron
3:26
Speaker 1: ore and the price it serves on the market, I
3:27
Speaker 1: think she's probably comfortably ensconced there for a while. Okay,
3:31
Speaker 1: so she's number one, and who else is there?
3:32
Speaker 2: So Harry Trigabov number two about thirty one billion dollars,
3:35
Speaker 2: so if you think about that, it's about fifteen billion
3:37
Speaker 2: dollars less than Gina, so that's a very big gap.
3:41
Speaker 1: So he's better because of Maritime.
3:43
Speaker 2: Merton, Sydney Apartment's King ninety three years young, still going strong,
3:47
Speaker 2: still charging around his building sites every day, still making
3:51
Speaker 2: a lot of money from building property and particularly renting
3:54
Speaker 2: out property. It's basically the biggest owner of hotel rooms
3:56
Speaker 2: down through service departments here in Australia as well. So
3:59
Speaker 2: if he if he builds them, and he is always
4:01
Speaker 2: building them, and he wants to build more he's always
4:03
Speaker 2: frustrated about government red tape and so on. Builds them,
4:06
Speaker 2: either sells them or rents them out. So either way
4:09
Speaker 2: he's doing very well.
4:10
Speaker 1: Fabulous story and in your magazine you did send that
4:13
Speaker 1: story more than once. But Harry Trick above story listeners,
4:16
Speaker 1: if you ever get a chance, it is something else.
4:19
Speaker 1: I think he was born was he like a Russian
4:22
Speaker 1: out of Russia into China and he was born in Tensin.
4:25
Speaker 1: Have I got that right?
4:27
Speaker 2: His Jewish family was living there during the thirties, and
4:30
Speaker 2: you know there was a substantial publication then got out
4:32
Speaker 2: from Russia previously and they sent Harry to Sydney to
4:36
Speaker 2: go to school, and he went back and found me
4:38
Speaker 2: textile business for all and came back to Sydney Land
4:41
Speaker 2: of opportunity sixty two years now. I think it is
4:44
Speaker 2: since he started Merriton, which was named after a street
4:47
Speaker 2: in northern Sydney that he built first couple of apartments on,
4:50
Speaker 2: and he's built a lot since he keeps building.
4:53
Speaker 1: Yes, and most people, I'm sure I have stayed in
4:55
Speaker 1: some Meriton apartments if you were traveling. So that's Harry Chigabov.
4:59
Speaker 1: Maybe in some ways he represents maybe that among the
5:04
Speaker 1: last of this extraordinary generation of immigrants that came to
5:08
Speaker 1: Australia post war, who was upon a time dominated this
5:12
Speaker 1: list that John produces the rich two fifty in the
5:14
Speaker 1: Australian Friday. But now it's changing a lot. John. It
5:18
Speaker 1: seems to me you have Anthony Pratt there, you have
5:21
Speaker 1: a trigger Boff, you have Gina Ryan Hart and some
5:25
Speaker 1: of the other sort of familiar names, including the Canva
5:27
Speaker 1: people there in the top ten, aren't there the Melanie
5:30
Speaker 1: and Cliff and who just round out the ten for
5:32
Speaker 1: us there? Who else haven't we mentioned?
5:34
Speaker 2: Yes, we've got Mike cannon Brooks and Scott Farquha, the
5:36
Speaker 2: Atlassian co founders of the Grand Old Age. I think
5:38
Speaker 2: they're forty five now, so I mean they're yeah, almost
5:41
Speaker 2: twenty nine billion dollars each. Mike's slightly above Scott. They're
5:43
Speaker 2: probably pretty similar, right, but MIC's they've all got. They've
5:46
Speaker 2: both got sort of other investments now that sort of
5:48
Speaker 2: boost up their wealth a bit as well. But that
5:51
Speaker 2: is an ongoing success story.
5:52
Speaker 1: They're extraordinary amounts of money, I mean, kind of hard
5:55
Speaker 1: for the average person to grapple with. Now you think
5:59
Speaker 1: about all this is shoe and about three million in
6:01
Speaker 1: super and then you hear about these guys who up
6:05
Speaker 1: to anty billion dollars plus the Canon Brooks for entertainment value. Folks,
6:11
Speaker 1: He being very vocal on all sorts of environmental issues
6:15
Speaker 1: for a long time, went and bought a private jet
6:18
Speaker 1: of Liz. Is that right? Yes?
6:20
Speaker 2: For me, he wouldn't be the only person on the
6:21
Speaker 2: list with a private jet James, of course, but he's
6:23
Speaker 2: probably not. He's probably one of the few on the
6:24
Speaker 2: lists who's been quite valuable about green energy and carbon
6:28
Speaker 2: issues and so on. But he's gone and got a jet.
6:31
Speaker 2: He talked about being for privacy, it was more security
6:33
Speaker 2: issues was one of the things he considered in this
6:37
Speaker 2: sort of tell all LinkedIn post, which is again another
6:40
Speaker 2: modern way of communicating, isn't it. I have to say
6:42
Speaker 2: though I did see him at the Melbourne Grand Prix
6:44
Speaker 2: last weekend. It wasn't much security around him as he
6:46
Speaker 2: walked the corridors of the corporate swedes. But yeah, maybe
6:49
Speaker 2: he's a bit different out there in the great unwashed.
6:51
Speaker 1: Of airports, struggling struggling around in the rain at the
6:54
Speaker 1: Grand Prix. So these are the very familiar figures now
6:57
Speaker 1: one thing I think is very interesting with the list
6:59
Speaker 1: this year and every year, it's different. When I look
7:02
Speaker 1: at the very top. These are the very wealthy, extraordinary
7:05
Speaker 1: wealthy people, three of them, and the three who would
7:09
Speaker 1: appear at first glance to be among the youngest. When
7:11
Speaker 1: I say youngest on the rich list, well if you
7:13
Speaker 1: mentioned Harry Trigobovs in his nineties and he's number two.
7:16
Speaker 1: But these three people, Laurence Escalente who's on the cover,
7:20
Speaker 1: Adrian Partelly who was on the cover last year, the
7:22
Speaker 1: Lambeau Man who all you have to do is read
7:25
Speaker 1: the metros or listen to the radio or television entertainment
7:30
Speaker 1: news to hear about him. And there's one more, Tim Heath.
7:34
Speaker 1: The three of them, they're all in one way or another,
7:38
Speaker 1: these massive fortunes. They're all in gambling, right, and the
7:40
Speaker 1: three of them are mostly making their money outside Australia.
7:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's right as in there I should.
7:46
Speaker 1: Have mentioned Ed Craven because his empire, apart from gambling
7:50
Speaker 1: and crypto, it does overlap into investing a little bit.
7:53
Speaker 1: You can buy shares and that sort of thing.
7:57
Speaker 2: So just to be clear, it's strictly gambling, but he
7:59
Speaker 2: also has this streaming service as well, so you've got
8:02
Speaker 2: so yeah, so you've got the three yeah gambling slash,
8:05
Speaker 2: let's call it sweepstakes model with escalante, right, if it's
8:08
Speaker 2: probably a way around these sort of you know, the
8:10
Speaker 2: gamings of you know laws of America. Yes, all of
8:14
Speaker 2: them make their money outside Australia because Australia, I mean
8:17
Speaker 2: they were a nation of gamblers. You see all the
8:19
Speaker 2: ads and so on TV, and so you can't actually
8:22
Speaker 2: gamble with cryptocurrency in Australia, right, there's still banned. So
8:24
Speaker 2: these guys have probably taken that Australian acumen and when
8:27
Speaker 2: it comes to gambling and apps and so on and
8:29
Speaker 2: so forth, and gone out and conquered the world. Now
8:32
Speaker 2: that's that also probably encapsulates how you can do that
8:34
Speaker 2: these days with technology and you can build a global
8:37
Speaker 2: business from Australia. So yes, they in particular Tim Heath
8:42
Speaker 2: a lot of cryptocurrency gambling with clients in South America,
8:46
Speaker 2: in the Middle East, a lot of cashed up people there.
8:49
Speaker 2: So his operation, he's got a couple of them, be
8:52
Speaker 2: cause he's got what's called bit casino and also sports
8:55
Speaker 2: bet dot Io, So there's online casino Games with Tim
8:58
Speaker 2: Heath and also online Bookmate with his other business, and
9:01
Speaker 2: than Ed Craven with Steak, which is basically an online
9:04
Speaker 2: sports book and casino business as well. And then you've
9:08
Speaker 2: got Escalante with the virtual gaming worlds. He's got Chumper
9:12
Speaker 2: Casinos one of his brands, which is in America, which
9:15
Speaker 2: mostly America, sorry, mostly North America, and that's more a
9:19
Speaker 2: gaming sort of experience. So all of that, these guys
9:22
Speaker 2: are worth, let's say roughly combined eight nine billion dollars.
9:26
Speaker 2: Well the two of them are in their forties. Ed
9:28
Speaker 2: Craven's only twenty nine, and yeah, they've made all this
9:30
Speaker 2: money from Australia, but actually from overseas.
9:33
Speaker 1: That's amazing, is it, And to some extent m of
9:35
Speaker 1: the money overseas because well, for a start, they couldn't
9:37
Speaker 1: actually operate here in the fashion that they operate overseas.
9:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. I mean Craven's now sort of putting out
9:43
Speaker 2: the feelers. We spotted him the other week in Darwin
9:46
Speaker 2: talking to the local bookmaking authorities there. That's where you
9:49
Speaker 2: get your license when you're in Australia. So he is
9:51
Speaker 2: now going on the straight and narrow if you want
9:53
Speaker 2: to say that inverted Comma is taking more bets in
9:56
Speaker 2: feet currency. That's what these people call it old money
10:00
Speaker 2: to you, and I yeah, exactly right, So he's sort
10:02
Speaker 2: of doing that. But mostly yeah, it's still mostly that
10:05
Speaker 2: online world. Outside Australia, there's guys are young, they're very successful,
10:10
Speaker 2: they have very sort of roller coaster ride lives that
10:13
Speaker 2: puff of it's on social media as well.
10:15
Speaker 1: They colorful lives, they really do. I suppose in a
10:17
Speaker 1: way it's a well you might think it's inevitable, but
10:21
Speaker 1: once upon a time the rich List, when you're in
10:25
Speaker 1: early days with when you did it, I think there
10:27
Speaker 1: was a lot of people who weren't boring as such,
10:29
Speaker 1: but they certainly weren't as interesting are colorful as some
10:31
Speaker 1: of the people who are in the upper reaches in
10:33
Speaker 1: the upper decks these days. One of the things that
10:37
Speaker 1: also strikes me is it seems to me if you
10:39
Speaker 1: look at the list, I mean, I'm just glancing at
10:41
Speaker 1: it here and I see various people who would be
10:45
Speaker 1: well known were on the list for a long time.
10:47
Speaker 1: Frank Lois, which was Westfield once upon a time, Kerry
10:50
Speaker 1: Stooke's Channel seven and West Track, Caterpillar, etc. These are
10:54
Speaker 1: always there, Alan Wilson, is that the Reef's family, the plumbing.
10:57
Speaker 1: That's a good example of a pretty boring business. But
11:00
Speaker 1: what people seem to be interested in, John, even though
11:04
Speaker 1: some of these characters are much deeper down the list, right,
11:06
Speaker 1: they're not as worthy as some of these family names
11:09
Speaker 1: that are not so well. It seems to me that
11:12
Speaker 1: younger readers investors are more interested in the younger set
11:18
Speaker 1: than the old set, or like the old guard.
11:21
Speaker 2: Is that your experience, Yeah, definitely, And the readership is
11:25
Speaker 2: much bigger for the stories that reveal new names or
11:28
Speaker 2: talk about the youngsters that you know. And when we
11:31
Speaker 2: say youngsters, people in the twenties, thirties, forties, right, I
11:33
Speaker 2: mean the revelations of how they've made their money so
11:37
Speaker 2: quickly and interestingly as well in a very interesting manner,
11:41
Speaker 2: very new age manner. A lot of it's technology based. Example,
11:44
Speaker 2: we've talked about Canva. Those sort of people always get
11:47
Speaker 2: really big readerships, and they often have very interesting backstories,
11:51
Speaker 2: very quol. I mean, everyone's got an interesting backstory in
11:53
Speaker 2: a way. But I mean Escalante might be forty three,
11:56
Speaker 2: but he's already had a career flipping burgers, at Hungry Jacks.
11:59
Speaker 2: He did paraplanning. When he was in his twenties, he
12:02
Speaker 2: did financial planning. He had a Christian games business, you know,
12:06
Speaker 2: that didn't quite make it because the publisher in America
12:10
Speaker 2: that he had didn't do a very good job with it,
12:12
Speaker 2: so he pivoted to virtual gaming. Was So they've all
12:15
Speaker 2: got those sort of really interesting stories that it can
12:18
Speaker 2: be slightly relatable. I mean, there's a lot of people
12:20
Speaker 2: that have flipped burgers at Hungary Jackson McDonald's right, and
12:23
Speaker 2: this guy's done it, and now he's gone and done this.
12:25
Speaker 2: So that's where I think where you get that interest.
12:27
Speaker 1: Has that appeal that it promises the great promise which
12:31
Speaker 1: Australia provides to this day. And I suppose it proves
12:34
Speaker 1: it where Harry Chigobov came in in Whenever the nineteen
12:37
Speaker 1: sixties and arrived with a suitcase got on the list.
12:41
Speaker 1: And similarly, these this new generation have come out of
12:44
Speaker 1: nowhere flipping burgers one day and twenty years later there
12:47
Speaker 1: on the list. So it's still possible. I suppose that's
12:49
Speaker 1: what people like.
12:49
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely like. If you take someone like a Robin Cooter,
12:52
Speaker 2: for example, with air trunk which got sold for twenty
12:54
Speaker 2: four billion dollars. This is the data center's business, right,
12:57
Speaker 2: So this is the data center's guy who got investment
12:59
Speaker 2: from Quarry. It was several billion dollars last year with
13:03
Speaker 2: data centers as going crazy because of artificial intelligence and
13:06
Speaker 2: we need all this data, and so he keeps building
13:09
Speaker 2: these data centers. Now they sort of look boring, right,
13:11
Speaker 2: they're just like big data centery things buildings, right, But
13:17
Speaker 2: he's moved pretty quickly. He does a really good job
13:19
Speaker 2: rolling out several around the world, sells it for twenty
13:21
Speaker 2: four billion dollars last year. So what's his backstory. He's
13:24
Speaker 2: in his forties. His parents are from Bangladesh. He's from
13:27
Speaker 2: Bangladesh as well. Effectively he was their great hope, right.
13:30
Speaker 2: They saved their money to send him to Australia to
13:32
Speaker 2: get an education. We've got a feature in the magazine
13:35
Speaker 2: where he talks about my parents better on me, right
13:38
Speaker 2: to make it. He had some pressure on himself to
13:40
Speaker 2: do that. Yeah, So he comes out and counting as
13:43
Speaker 2: this sort of classic what migrants do when they come
13:46
Speaker 2: to study here in Australia, works sort of menial jobs,
13:48
Speaker 2: gets a job in financial services and then into new
13:52
Speaker 2: age sort of data center sort of things where you know,
13:54
Speaker 2: he parlays his skills into that. But again he talked
13:57
Speaker 2: about where he was very close to calling in the
13:59
Speaker 2: ministry is in his early days in business, sweating over
14:02
Speaker 2: that for I think it was during Christmas time and
14:04
Speaker 2: stuff all that. So again that's his parents bet on him,
14:07
Speaker 2: send him to another country to get an education. He
14:10
Speaker 2: makes good here along the way. He still has some
14:14
Speaker 2: pretty tough business ups and downs.
14:17
Speaker 1: Right, this is Robin Kuda and the business was air Trunk.
14:20
Speaker 1: That was the one, of course, folks that were sold
14:22
Speaker 1: possibly at the top of the AI driven data center boom,
14:28
Speaker 1: which has driven companies like next DC, et cetera of
14:32
Speaker 1: recent times, and even might I say the Goodman Group,
14:35
Speaker 1: which if you were wondering whether air Trunk could have
14:39
Speaker 1: been sold for as much today, I wonder. Goodman is
14:42
Speaker 1: of course terrific property trust, but has had a premium
14:44
Speaker 1: for a long time because it's a data center play.
14:46
Speaker 1: It had a big rights issue just recently. It closed
14:51
Speaker 1: last week. The rights issue was offered at a higher
14:53
Speaker 1: price than the share price and guess what, well, smartly enough,
14:58
Speaker 1: virtually no retail investors took it up rightly, So why
15:00
Speaker 1: would you go into a writ tissue if you could
15:02
Speaker 1: buy the shares for lists. It's just a little anecdote
15:05
Speaker 1: about that area data centers. And I think one of
15:08
Speaker 1: the extra things John will take a break now. But
15:10
Speaker 1: one of the extra things about these people when you
15:13
Speaker 1: meet them, you assume a whole lot. They are obsessive,
15:16
Speaker 1: they're marvelous, they're focused. You can assume a lot of things,
15:22
Speaker 1: but one of the things they seem to have sometimes
15:24
Speaker 1: is this magic sense of timing. And a lot of
15:28
Speaker 1: the fortunes on the list would some of them it's
15:31
Speaker 1: a lifetime my chemist wharehouse. They could have sold it
15:33
Speaker 1: this year, next year, ten years ago. But some of
15:35
Speaker 1: them just said, have that marvelous extra talent of knowing
15:39
Speaker 1: when to push the button to sell or I will
15:41
Speaker 1: take short break back in a moment. Hello, Welcome back
15:53
Speaker 1: to The Australian's Money Puzzle podcast. I'm James Kirby talking
15:58
Speaker 1: in this episode specially episode. We do this every year
16:02
Speaker 1: and it's one of my favorite shows. It's John Stencil,
16:05
Speaker 1: the Rich two fifty editor, and he is taking us
16:09
Speaker 1: through the Rich two fifty edition, which is out tomorrow.
16:14
Speaker 1: Now we in the first part of the show, Folks,
16:17
Speaker 1: we talked a little bit about some of the for
16:19
Speaker 1: the people at the very top of the list who
16:20
Speaker 1: you would be familiar with, some of the new crew
16:24
Speaker 1: that are coming through, some of them in gaming, in gambling,
16:27
Speaker 1: some of them in much more conventional businesses, quite boring
16:31
Speaker 1: businesses like data centers which you can make a fortune
16:34
Speaker 1: from too. And we mentioned in passing the Gans family.
16:38
Speaker 1: Now there's a couple of families. This is Chemists Warehouse, Folks,
16:40
Speaker 1: which is the big float of the year, and everyone
16:44
Speaker 1: knows Chemist Square House, and suddenly I see dotted through
16:47
Speaker 1: the list John the people who were involved with it.
16:51
Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about who's behind Chemist Square
16:53
Speaker 1: House and how they all arrive on the rich list
16:56
Speaker 1: this year.
16:57
Speaker 2: There's actually six people from Chemists wa the two fifty.
17:00
Speaker 2: How do you believe, James, So do two families, the
17:03
Speaker 2: Gance family and the Verrocki family. So it starts with
17:07
Speaker 2: jacket Sam Gance back in the gritty Melbourne suburb of
17:11
Speaker 2: Reservoir back in the seventies and early eighties. And the
17:14
Speaker 2: guy comes along who's got a chemist a degree called
17:18
Speaker 2: Mario Varocki, and he wants a job and they hire
17:20
Speaker 2: him as their sort of I guess apprentice.
17:22
Speaker 1: Right, So he's the qualified chemist and they're the two
17:25
Speaker 1: entrepreneur brothers, okay, and they're Polish originally.
17:29
Speaker 2: I know they're the European originally. They also quite entrepreneurial, right,
17:33
Speaker 2: they start buying chemist stuff, but they also had the
17:35
Speaker 2: Laspecs and Latane brands back in the eighties as well
17:37
Speaker 2: in nineties, which are fantastic sun cream and sunglasses brands.
17:41
Speaker 2: So they do that, and then in about two thousands
17:43
Speaker 2: they start what we know now today is the chemist
17:46
Speaker 2: where House business. Right now, it's been very private. I
17:49
Speaker 2: mean Jack has told me personally he hates the rich list.
17:53
Speaker 2: Mario very good, he's always very nice about it, emails
17:56
Speaker 2: me back at no comment, and I don't want to
17:58
Speaker 2: talk about it. It'd be great if I'm not on
17:59
Speaker 2: the lid. But so they've been on the list for
18:02
Speaker 2: a while a few years now. But then Chemist's Warehouse
18:06
Speaker 2: wants to go public Mother Wealth, right, so they engineer
18:11
Speaker 2: this effectively a reverse takeover of the already listed Sigma Healthcare.
18:15
Speaker 2: Now as a result of that, something like eighty or
18:17
Speaker 2: ninety percent of the private Chemist Warehouse shareholders now become
18:22
Speaker 2: Sigma shareholders, including several members of their family, one of
18:27
Speaker 2: them being Damien Gants, who's the chief commercial officer, who's
18:30
Speaker 2: Sam Ganser's son. He's a billionaire in our list this
18:32
Speaker 2: year now thanks to his Sigma shares.
18:34
Speaker 1: And thanks to this process back which they turned the
18:37
Speaker 1: private company into a publicly listed company, through what they
18:40
Speaker 1: used to call it a reverse takeover of the Sigma Group,
18:43
Speaker 1: which is listed on the Start market, you were able
18:46
Speaker 1: to see how much everyone had.
18:47
Speaker 2: Yes, right, yes, thanks to this scheme of arrangement booklets, James,
18:51
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know who else looks through those,
18:52
Speaker 2: but that's what I do. So several other members of
18:55
Speaker 2: the Verrocki family as well, Marcello and Adrian brothers. They've
19:00
Speaker 2: roughly at nine hundred million dollars or so stock each.
19:03
Speaker 2: There's several other executives and family members who just missed
19:07
Speaker 2: the list, two that are worth four five hundred million,
19:10
Speaker 2: two hundred three hundred million on paper.
19:12
Speaker 1: What does it take to get on the list.
19:13
Speaker 2: It takes through six hundred and thirty five million now
19:16
Speaker 2: this year. It's a very high cutoff.
19:19
Speaker 1: Oh my god, six hundred and five minutes to get
19:21
Speaker 1: on folks. So don't feel if you know someone terribly
19:25
Speaker 1: wealthy and you say they'll be on the list and
19:27
Speaker 1: they're not, well, they might be a both only five
19:29
Speaker 1: hundred million. Keep that in mind. That's the Gants and
19:32
Speaker 1: Baroki family who were behind Chemist Warehouse, and that's a
19:35
Speaker 1: great story. I presumed the chemist skills and everything else
19:38
Speaker 1: did not like them, did not like their sort of
19:42
Speaker 1: commoditization of chemist shops. How do they get it through
19:46
Speaker 1: the system?
19:46
Speaker 2: Ye, there's been a lot of regulatory sort of battles
19:49
Speaker 2: over the years, and they've really just sort of almost
19:51
Speaker 2: punched through all those and just kept sort of persevering
19:53
Speaker 2: and kept growing almost in despite what the sort of
19:56
Speaker 2: protective nature of the chemist business or the chemist industry
19:59
Speaker 2: has done. I mean, effectively, if you walk into a
20:01
Speaker 2: chemists warehouse, it's a big retail sort of outlet, isn't
20:05
Speaker 2: It's a big shop with a chemist at the chemist
20:07
Speaker 2: at the back. So that's really what it is. Stack
20:10
Speaker 2: them high and sell them low and all that sort
20:12
Speaker 2: of ratel success story.
20:14
Speaker 1: It's amazing. There's one in every I mean, it seems
20:16
Speaker 1: to me there's one in every suburban strip in Australia and.
20:19
Speaker 2: There's plenty of growth throughout Iver says, and still in Australia.
20:22
Speaker 1: And as you say, when I saw that history of
20:25
Speaker 1: getting through all hurdles, when I saw all the debate
20:27
Speaker 1: about whether they'd ever get their reverse takeover up and
20:30
Speaker 1: whether Stigma will get through and whether they get the
20:32
Speaker 1: deal done, I remember thinking, these guys have gone. These
20:35
Speaker 1: guys have gone from a shop in the suburb of
20:39
Speaker 1: Melbourne to a multi billion dollar chain. They are not
20:42
Speaker 1: going to be stopped by any regulatory hurdle at the
20:46
Speaker 1: last lap when they go to cash out their fortunes
20:48
Speaker 1: as they are entitled to by going on the stock market. Okay,
20:52
Speaker 1: that's the Kansas and they are suddenly a cohort of
20:55
Speaker 1: their own. The two families behind the Chemists warehouse on
20:58
Speaker 1: this year's list, and they've arrived. You've found some other people.
21:02
Speaker 1: There's a guy called Michael daldy or In. He appears
21:07
Speaker 1: out of the blue with a bullets at number thirteen
21:11
Speaker 1: at an estimate of thirteen point five billion billion dollars.
21:16
Speaker 1: Never heard of him? Who on earth is he? And
21:19
Speaker 1: how does he squeeze in between Frank Lloyd and Carry
21:21
Speaker 1: Stokes And we've never heard of him.
21:23
Speaker 2: This is an incredible story. I mean, Mike is an
21:26
Speaker 2: uzzie guy on Wall Street and he has got a
21:29
Speaker 2: business called stone Peak and invests in infrastructure around the world.
21:32
Speaker 2: It's almost like a mini mcquarie model.
21:33
Speaker 1: So hecquary and he went to the US.
21:35
Speaker 2: He exactly took that model over to the US. Worked
21:38
Speaker 2: with mcquarie in the US for a while. It's a
21:40
Speaker 2: great story about how it wasn't. He claims he didn't
21:43
Speaker 2: do very well at UNI, but he managed to talk
21:45
Speaker 2: his way in too Mcquarie as a cadet by going
21:47
Speaker 2: along to their sort of drinks networking session spends. If
21:50
Speaker 2: he is there doing really well, goes over to America
21:52
Speaker 2: with them with taking that mcquarie sort of buying toll
21:55
Speaker 2: roads and poles and wires and all this sort of
21:57
Speaker 2: infrastructure assets and wrapping them up and someone management fees
22:01
Speaker 2: all that sort of thing. It goes out on his
22:03
Speaker 2: own with a business partner. The global financial crisis hit,
22:05
Speaker 2: so they don't really have much business for a couple
22:07
Speaker 2: of years. Decided that they had a big backer. Then
22:10
Speaker 2: they pretty much didn't really know what to do other
22:13
Speaker 2: than keep working away. They had this crucial moment where
22:16
Speaker 2: they end up in Olympia in Washington State sort of
22:19
Speaker 2: talking to the local state pension fund about investing a
22:22
Speaker 2: couple hundred million dollars into their business. They managed to
22:25
Speaker 2: get the money and away they go. And it's built
22:27
Speaker 2: very quietly. We wouldn't even know about it.
22:29
Speaker 1: And is it green energy or all energy?
22:31
Speaker 2: All sorts of energy, all sorts of ports and different
22:34
Speaker 2: infrastructure sort of assets. Now, I mean they've even owned
22:37
Speaker 2: New Zealand age care homes, you know, this sort of
22:41
Speaker 2: what I guess what they think is pretty steady income
22:43
Speaker 2: sort of, and they have about seven seventy odd billion
22:48
Speaker 2: dollars US in assets under management or under administration. The
22:54
Speaker 2: business is actually worth. It got a US sort of
22:57
Speaker 2: fifteen billion dollar valuation when a private equ he fund
23:00
Speaker 2: bought into it last year. That's where you got That's
23:02
Speaker 2: where I got the numbers from. Before then, we didn't
23:04
Speaker 2: know about Mike. But the really interesting thing about Mark
23:07
Speaker 2: is that he also we got a bit of publicity
23:09
Speaker 2: about him last year when he bought her just a
23:11
Speaker 2: small one hundred and fifty million dollar mansion in Palm Beach,
23:14
Speaker 2: just just around the corner from Mary Lago James, which
23:17
Speaker 2: I've actually seen is very nice.
23:18
Speaker 1: All right, right, all right, interesting story, Michael Dorral. That
23:21
Speaker 1: is interesting to you talking about how he talked his
23:25
Speaker 1: way into mcquarie. I remember was upon a time Quarry
23:28
Speaker 1: famously has this very difficult entry tests McCrary bank, that is, folks,
23:31
Speaker 1: and you have to pass all these tests like iq EQ,
23:34
Speaker 1: rose arch tests, my briggs, my briggs, et cetera. And
23:41
Speaker 1: I was working with someone on the commercial side who
23:45
Speaker 1: was ex McQuary bank, and we were hiring someone and
23:48
Speaker 1: he wanted to give them these tests. And I been
23:52
Speaker 1: coming up through media, had no experience whatsoever of this
23:55
Speaker 1: end of things. And I can tell you that we
23:57
Speaker 1: still don't have anything like that when you're recruited media
24:00
Speaker 1: at any level. But interestingly, we did the test and
24:04
Speaker 1: someone I liked did badly on the tests, and this
24:08
Speaker 1: ex maccori guy said, don't go against the tests. Every
24:10
Speaker 1: time I went against the test, it blew up, and
24:13
Speaker 1: we didn't. And apparently that is a thing. They're very strong,
24:16
Speaker 1: and how you get into an investment bank is you
24:19
Speaker 1: have to climb over quite a lot of hurdles, including
24:21
Speaker 1: those tests. So it's really interesting about our friend Michael Daryl.
24:26
Speaker 1: I wondered did he really get in sort of a
24:30
Speaker 1: side door of from Maccarier or did he not? That
24:32
Speaker 1: could be something for you to find out for next year. Okay,
24:35
Speaker 1: now also new entrance. This just I find this completely entertaining.
24:38
Speaker 1: There's a chap who has managed to be a debutante
24:43
Speaker 1: on the list and he's ninety years old. Tell us
24:47
Speaker 1: about him.
24:48
Speaker 2: Yes, Andreas Andreanopolis, who's a Greek margareant, lives in Melbourne.
24:52
Speaker 2: He has built up these big network of petrol stations
24:55
Speaker 2: for decades.
24:56
Speaker 1: But they're not under his name.
24:57
Speaker 2: Well, they're under a business A Holdings, which just sounds
25:01
Speaker 2: so vanilla. It doesn't no idea what it was, but
25:04
Speaker 2: it just happened to pop up on one of this
25:06
Speaker 2: hot highest taxpayers lists that the ATO puts out, and
25:10
Speaker 2: I wonder what is this company? And due to recent
25:13
Speaker 2: changes by the federal government the last couple of years,
25:16
Speaker 2: a lot of these private companies have started having to
25:18
Speaker 2: lodge their financial orts with set.
25:21
Speaker 1: They are finally doing it, and they finally do it.
25:22
Speaker 2: So A Holdings puts one up and all of a
25:25
Speaker 2: sudden it's like wow, there's hundreds of millions of dollars
25:28
Speaker 2: in this business from this pretty humble guy and if
25:30
Speaker 2: he gets a bit of attention in the local Greek media,
25:33
Speaker 2: very big philanthropy and just this business that just just
25:38
Speaker 2: kept working away. Again another classic migrant success story, I think, Jane,
25:42
Speaker 2: but very quietly done his thing.
25:45
Speaker 1: Isn't that fantastic? What a great story you've dug up there,
25:47
Speaker 1: You've excavated from the Assic files. And of course again
25:50
Speaker 1: I was a little bit cynical that they would ever
25:52
Speaker 1: get anything out of private companies, because that's why people
25:55
Speaker 1: keep them private. So Nick Andrianachus and family one point
26:00
Speaker 1: billion in there at number eighty eight and very much
26:04
Speaker 1: an unknown quantity until today. Okay, well take short break.
26:07
Speaker 1: We'll be back in a moment with some questions. Hello,
26:17
Speaker 1: Welcome back to The Australian's Money Puzzle podcast. I'm James
26:20
Speaker 1: Kirby and I'm talking to John Stencil and we are
26:22
Speaker 1: talking about the ever interesting Rich to fifty list. Interesting
26:28
Speaker 1: from a money point of view. From an investment point
26:31
Speaker 1: of view, some people love to back people in their investments.
26:34
Speaker 1: You have these founder led funds where people just say
26:37
Speaker 1: I trust the person rather than the company, and they
26:40
Speaker 1: get behind them, and some of those companies go a
26:42
Speaker 1: long way. You look at the top of the list,
26:43
Speaker 1: I mean wise check us up there for instance, which
26:45
Speaker 1: is very much attached to one person, Richard White, who,
26:48
Speaker 1: by George isn't going to give up that company easy,
26:50
Speaker 1: that's for sure. But I was wondering with you, John,
26:53
Speaker 1: when you're looking at this, I'm just wondering whether I
26:57
Speaker 1: read about as a guy to follow. It was a
27:01
Speaker 1: very interesting man. He died a few years ago. His
27:04
Speaker 1: name was Felix Dennis, fascinating guy. Australians might remember. Australians
27:10
Speaker 1: are interested in nineteen sixties culture, might remember there was
27:13
Speaker 1: a famous magazine called oz oh Z and there was
27:16
Speaker 1: all these extraordinary people linked with it, and they had
27:19
Speaker 1: a famous trial in the UK way back. A lot
27:22
Speaker 1: of famous Australians came out of that trial. But the
27:26
Speaker 1: person behind the publisher of oz was a man called
27:29
Speaker 1: Pheenix Tennis, and he later, as a multi millionaire, wrote
27:33
Speaker 1: a book called How to Get Rich. But it's actually
27:37
Speaker 1: a very sad book, almost about how he was a
27:40
Speaker 1: cocaine addict. He was never happy. He had a fortune
27:43
Speaker 1: of one hundred million or so and a long tail
27:47
Speaker 1: of misery laced with a lot of money. And I
27:49
Speaker 1: just wonder John about what these people have in common,
27:53
Speaker 1: whether they are what are their common qualities. I know
27:58
Speaker 1: it's really hard to answer that this, but that's a
28:00
Speaker 1: bit more about them as a corehurt Well.
28:02
Speaker 2: I guess there's that notions of perseverance and high energy
28:05
Speaker 2: and coming back from stepbacks and all that sort of
28:08
Speaker 2: thing that you know, being smart and with their timing
28:10
Speaker 2: and highly intelligent. I think that's the richest to fifty list, James,
28:14
Speaker 2: but it's not necessarily the happy two fifty year old.
28:16
Speaker 2: I mean that there's a lot of trials and tribulations
28:18
Speaker 2: that come with being wealthy. I'm not saying we need
28:20
Speaker 2: to feel sorry for them, but you can just think.
28:21
Speaker 2: I just know that when I write about them for
28:23
Speaker 2: the rest of the year, so to speak. In my
28:25
Speaker 2: normal job, there's a lot of increasing amount of court
28:28
Speaker 2: cases and disputes that we cover in terms of who's
28:31
Speaker 2: going to get the money or why hasn't this person
28:33
Speaker 2: got that? So that's the I think that's the coming
28:36
Speaker 2: tide of how do you deal with having a big
28:38
Speaker 2: amount of wealth, How do you deal with your kids?
28:41
Speaker 1: How do your kids deal with it?
28:42
Speaker 2: Exactly right?
28:43
Speaker 1: Do you think angst is more common in the second generation.
28:46
Speaker 2: I think it is. I mean, there's been some very
28:48
Speaker 2: high profile issues with mental health concerns. James Packerson is
28:53
Speaker 2: the Springs to America.
28:54
Speaker 1: And we mentioned the Rhinehart family who've been in and
28:56
Speaker 1: out of court, mentioned the Pratt who I've have been
29:01
Speaker 1: in court. That is in the Pratt side and well
29:05
Speaker 1: in the Hancock's side, Gina Hinhardt side. There's long running
29:09
Speaker 1: core cases. Yeah. So, and then the other thing is like,
29:12
Speaker 1: even if they have their act together, even if they
29:15
Speaker 1: are well balanced, well adjusted people, other people treat them differently.
29:22
Speaker 1: They can't be treated normally, can they.
29:25
Speaker 2: No, it's a verified error, I suppose. So there's a
29:27
Speaker 2: cohort of people around these people that I guess say
29:30
Speaker 2: yes to them a lot. Probably, you know, that's what
29:33
Speaker 2: they've got to, that position of power and wealth. You
29:36
Speaker 2: see that relationship that people have with politicians, that sort
29:39
Speaker 2: of courting power in that way or having the power
29:41
Speaker 2: caught them in a political sense. So there is that
29:44
Speaker 2: notion that they are above everyone else in a whole
29:47
Speaker 2: bunch of ways rather than just the money side.
29:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, everyone probably wants something from them. There's some people
29:53
Speaker 1: would be familiar with that across time. But as you said,
29:57
Speaker 1: we have these next generations coming through. The most obvious
29:59
Speaker 1: ones been Prass, Packer, the Lowis, et cetera. These are
30:03
Speaker 1: old families that have been on the list for a
30:05
Speaker 1: long time, but as you say, it's not necessarily the
30:08
Speaker 1: happy list, So pro rata, I suppose more of them
30:11
Speaker 1: end up in court with their siblings than perhaps the
30:14
Speaker 1: average sample on the street. Okay, because the nature of
30:19
Speaker 1: your arrival on the show, John, it being so special,
30:21
Speaker 1: I have curated some very special questions for you, just
30:26
Speaker 1: one or two, but I wanted to put this to
30:30
Speaker 1: you and folks. One thing I haven't sort of mentioned
30:32
Speaker 1: on the show before is when the questions come in,
30:35
Speaker 1: of course from you all, which are great, and they
30:37
Speaker 1: come in every day to the money puzzle at the
30:38
Speaker 1: Australian dot Com dot you also I get a torrent
30:42
Speaker 1: of unwanted people request to come on the show, asking
30:46
Speaker 1: to come on some one in ten maybe I would
30:50
Speaker 1: even think about. But a lot of them I don't
30:52
Speaker 1: want to even talk about or talk to. And I
30:55
Speaker 1: thought i'd asked John, I'm just going to read out John,
30:57
Speaker 1: this is something that's typical thing that came in during
30:59
Speaker 1: the week. I'm going to scrub out the person's name.
31:01
Speaker 1: It's this piece of correspondent says mister X was in
31:06
Speaker 1: debt after the tenants trashed the investment property, but rather
31:09
Speaker 1: than letting it ruin him, it changed his life. In
31:12
Speaker 1: just four years, this Brisbane based investor flipped twenty seven properties,
31:20
Speaker 1: built a four million portfolio, made two million in profit
31:24
Speaker 1: and launched I love this last bit, a half a
31:27
Speaker 1: million a month coaching business. And now he's on a
31:31
Speaker 1: mission to teach us all how to build wealth. Now,
31:34
Speaker 1: the reason I bring this up is I don't know
31:37
Speaker 1: this person. I don't want to know this person. There's
31:40
Speaker 1: piles of them out there, but a lot of our
31:42
Speaker 1: listeners and a lot of everyday Australians that's the rich list.
31:46
Speaker 1: They see it. They admire those people. These people arrive
31:49
Speaker 1: in front of them and they promise rich riches made
31:53
Speaker 1: fast and easy.
31:54
Speaker 2: The sacreds of making your success. I'm not sure whether
31:57
Speaker 2: that five hundred a month is his income from the
32:02
Speaker 2: coaching or that's what he's charging. So either way, it's
32:04
Speaker 2: pretty outrageous if you were to call it that. Yeah,
32:07
Speaker 2: you're right. There's the notions of seminars to how to
32:10
Speaker 2: build your property wealth and that sort of thing that
32:12
Speaker 2: cropped up and never ran. There's a lot of this
32:15
Speaker 2: stuff and I feel that that look firstly, you know,
32:19
Speaker 2: you really have to get qualified advice on a whole
32:21
Speaker 2: bunch of things.
32:22
Speaker 1: But what only have the people on this list ever
32:23
Speaker 1: go and listen to a coach talking about flipping properties
32:27
Speaker 1: and how much they've made from coaching themselves, from coaching
32:30
Speaker 1: others to make money. I mean, would only have the
32:33
Speaker 1: people on to anything.
32:34
Speaker 2: Like this, No, not in a million years, but their
32:36
Speaker 2: kids go with their next generation. No, I think, I
32:39
Speaker 2: think you've got to weed out. I mean that would
32:40
Speaker 2: be just very skeptical about this sort of thing. There's
32:42
Speaker 2: a lot of hangers on. There's a lot of people
32:45
Speaker 2: trying to sort of learn about these things that I
32:47
Speaker 2: think the best thing really you've got to take advice
32:49
Speaker 2: in the mainstream. You could probably learn just as much
32:51
Speaker 2: from reading the Riches to fifty and pulling out the
32:53
Speaker 2: key lessons from what the successful people have done. And
32:55
Speaker 2: there's always quite a few perennial things overcoming setbacks and
32:59
Speaker 2: forcing the moments that you don't necessarily need to fork
33:02
Speaker 2: out tens of thousands of dollars for But I think
33:05
Speaker 2: even if you want to invest in something like this,
33:07
Speaker 2: there's funds these days that invest in found all led companies.
33:10
Speaker 2: Even that's some sort of a proxy for taking on
33:13
Speaker 2: the advice or the acumen of founders or wealthy people.
33:17
Speaker 2: So there's other avenues of doing it. But this notion
33:20
Speaker 2: that wealth can be taught in this way is I
33:23
Speaker 2: think it's a pretty false one.
33:25
Speaker 1: Okay, I thought i'd put that question out there listeners.
33:28
Speaker 1: I don't normally as I say, but I thought this
33:30
Speaker 1: was the time to do it, because when we do
33:33
Speaker 1: a show like this, to some extent, you have to
33:34
Speaker 1: be careful. You don't necessarily want it. Well, you're championing
33:38
Speaker 1: people on the rich list, but it's their business and
33:41
Speaker 1: investment acumen, not necessarily we don't always know what they're
33:44
Speaker 1: actually like. Just one that's saying, Luke asks, I was
33:48
Speaker 1: wondering if we could have a deep dive into shares
33:52
Speaker 1: versus property. I feel the main reason people believe property
33:55
Speaker 1: outperforms is the leverage. Also the bank's willingness to provide
33:59
Speaker 1: credit for property over shares. Yeah, you're onto something there, Luke,
34:03
Speaker 1: Property versus shares, And then it's something that we could
34:07
Speaker 1: talk We have a show about it every other month,
34:10
Speaker 1: but we should have one about it because it comes
34:12
Speaker 1: up all the time. And the first part I want
34:14
Speaker 1: to make you is that this thing about that properly
34:16
Speaker 1: because it's leverage, is something misleading. You can get leverage
34:19
Speaker 1: on shares. You can negatively gear shares just as much
34:22
Speaker 1: as easily as you can negatively gear property. In fact,
34:26
Speaker 1: it would be considerably easier and less taxing in many ways.
34:29
Speaker 1: But we will talk about that on Tuesday show, The
34:32
Speaker 1: Budget Day Show with Anthony Keane coming up, and of
34:35
Speaker 1: course we'll have the budget next week, which is March
34:39
Speaker 1: twenty five. I have never recalled a budget where there
34:42
Speaker 1: was so little in the way of leaks or information
34:48
Speaker 1: or anticipation, probably because they say the government didn't want
34:52
Speaker 1: to have it, but they're going to have it. And
34:53
Speaker 1: I will be on with Will Hamilton and we will
34:56
Speaker 1: do our annual budget show, and don't you worry, we
34:59
Speaker 1: will find plenty to talk about until then. Thank you,
35:02
Speaker 1: Thank you John stand Soult from The Rich two fifty.
35:04
Speaker 2: Thank you James.
35:05
Speaker 1: Great to have you in the studio today, and thank
35:08
Speaker 1: you for listening.