Richest move to the beat of the market

Chris Ellison’s tax scandal may have dominated the headlines lately, but much of the damage to his personal wealth has been from the commodity price falls that have afflicted many on the Rich List.

With iron ore down around 25 per cent since Business News last took a wealth stocktake in late January, and lithium having slumped even further, Mr Ellison’s Mineral Resources has been hit by a big drop in market capitalisation.

The entrepreneur has an 11 per cent stake in the company he founded, and the volatility of its share price – from $60 each in late January to highs around $80 a share in May, before plunging to $35 in September – has conspired to drag the value of Mr Ellison’s stake in the mining and mining services company well below the $1 billion mark.

A recovery from those September lows was short lived, seemingly as the market reacted negatively to a string of disclosures around Mr Ellison’s tax problems and relatedparty arrangements.

Penalties associated with those revelations will come at a cost to Mr Ellison, who will forgo performance payments, undo related-party arrangements, sell properties and donate to charity.

But those will have little to do with moving the needle one way or the other when it comes to his personal wealth, as Business News estimates Mr Ellison is the 15th richest person in the state, with his $1.3 billion fortune down from $2.18 billion earlier this year when he was ranked at number 10.

Just as it has been for many of his Western Australian Rich List peers, it is commodity prices that have driven the greatest changes in wealth estimates.

Mining setbacks

A year ago, prospector Mark Creasy’s wealth was peaking on the back of intense interest in his lithium assets from major mining investors, including our wealthiest resident Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting and Mr Ellison’s Mineral Resources.

Mr Creasy’s Yandal Investments booked more than 100 per cent increase in net profit to $107 million for the year ending June 30, boosted by a tidy $219.5 million from the sale of shares, understood to be Mr Creasy’s 12.8 per cent stake in Azure Minerals into Hancock Prospecting and SQM’s $1.7 billion bid.

Creasy Group still holds a direct 40 per cent interest in the undeveloped Andover lithium project, but that will require patience to gain the same values as suggested by the takeover battles late last year.

That frenzy had already ended by the time Business News valued Mr Creasy’s wealth at $1.2 billion early this year, when he was 16th on our inaugural Rich List. Business News now has him at number 20, worth about $880 million.

In pure dollar terms, the biggest losers are Mrs Rinehart and Andrew and Nicola Forrest, if that word can genuinely be applied to them.

The Forrests’ wealth is largely tied to the share price of the world’s fourth-biggest iron miner, Fortescue, in which they jointly hold one third of its stock (despite being separated as a couple for about 18 months).

Fortescue is down about 40 per cent since the end of January, which reduces the collective value of their stakes by $5.8 billion.

Mrs Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting is unlisted, more diversified in commodity terms, and more conservatively managed than Fortescue with its strategic focus on renewable energy.

But even the share prices of global miners BHP and Rio Tinto have been clobbered in 2024, serving as something of a proxy for Mrs Rinehart’s private business, which Business News estimated to be worth about $5.4 billion less than a year ago, still leaving her as the nation’s richest person on $39.77 billion.

Beyond minerals

Rounding out the biggest loss-making side of the wealth ledger was the Buckeridge family, where a painfully long process of asset sales continues amid dramatic challenges to its once-mighty residential building and materials business, BGC Australia.

Formerly the nation’s number one home builder, BGC stopped taking new business in that sector as it dealt with a big backlog of house construction projects and a major legal battle over burst water pipes.

Its annual report for the year ending June 30 showed it had sold its fibre cement and plasterboard assets to European company Etex for $163 million and traded its precast assets to director Julian Ambrose for $25 million; the latter deal highlighting the likely split of the remaining Buckeridge fortune, in time.

Business News estimates BGC has sold assets with worth $1 billion since the death of company founder Len Buckeridge a decade ago.

In terms of winners from 2024, Kerry Stokes is clearly number one in that respect.

With the bulk of his wealth tied up in diversified industrial company SGH, Mr Stokes has benefited from a 40 per cent gain in share price in just under 10 months.

While SGH, formerly Seven Group Holdings, is strongly tapped into the mining sector via its Caterpillar franchise holder Westrac, its success is partly a vindication of the old gold rush strategy to sell shovels rather than go digging for the precious metal.

But SGH is also exposed to broader booming construction sectors such as infrastructure through Westrac, building materials subsidiary Boral, and equipment hire firm Coates.

Another WA Rich List member with big mining exposure to move positively was the Rhodes family, which built its fortune on iron ore royalties gained as the result of founder Don Rhodes’ construction work in the sector during the early days of the industry.

The family has diversified significantly, especially into agriculture, but royalties comprise the bulk of its earnings at a handy $120 million or so per annum.

As with the descendants of Peter Wright – Angela Bennett, Leonie Baldock and Alexandra Burt – the valuations for their royalty earning assets are somewhat opaque, so to a certain extent we have looked at pure cash inflows as well as, where possible, comparison with the market capitalisation of listed royalties company Deterra.

Rounding out the top 10 movers was the Rae family, which made its fortune through the Gull Petroleum business, and industrial property magnate Michael Hodgson.

The Raes’ wealth increases have been estimated largely on the back of property portfolios, notably in WA where prices have moved sharply in the past year.

Next tier

Volatility is not just in the mining sector, and few stories exemplify that better than the case of Megan Wynne, who founded APM Human Services International, and her husband, Bruce Bellinge.

APM’s listing in 2021 had given Ms Wynne billionaire status, but it was a hard slog after an initial honeymoon period as the cost of labour, challenges of finding staff and other factors started to disrupt the company’s performance as a provider of services to government in areas such as allied health and disability.

Bad press stoked the flames of market negativity and, this year, APM was delisted as its major shareholder Madison Dearborn bought out most of the minority shareholders, excepting the founding couple and chief executive Michael Anghie.

While Ms Wynne and Mr Bellinge had little choice but to take the deal, it actually re-rated their fortune positively compared with market lows earlier in the year. Under the takeover their stake is worth $460 million, a figure supported by the company’s last accounts as a listed player.

Megan Wynne at the launch of APM as a listed company in 2021. Photo: Matt Jelonek

On top of that, interests associated with Ms Wynne had previously taken big licks of cash out of the business, including $250 million in 2018 when they sold down a majority holding to Quadrant Private Equity, and more than $35 million in the float through the sale of some subsidiary enterprises to APM.

This combination has pushed them to the cusp of the top 20 with a 25 per cent jump in wealth to about $835 million, just nudging down the Wheatley family, which became a third-generation estate following the death of automotive retailing doyen Vern Wheatley in August this year.

Incoming

Business News is pleased to reveal that it has names to add to the Rich List, albeit the 2025 list won’t be published until early in the next financial year.

At the top end of those who will be added to our list next time around is Graeme Morgan, a financial services entrepreneur who was a pioneer of the master trust concept for investment administration through a business called Sealcorp.

Mr Morgan sold Sealcorp to St George Bank in 1997 for $270 million, 40 per cent of which was his. It was good timing, as he had earlier bought out the 27 per cent stake of partner, County NatWest, for less than a third of the eventual sale price.

Keeping the lowest of profiles, and worth an estimated $450 million or thereabouts, Mr Morgan has stayed under the radar for almost three decades, bobbing up only recently to sell some of his art collection.

Business News has already flagged the fortune of Doug Brooks from Brooks Hire as another candidate for the Rich List.

With a business empire across the nation conservatively estimated to be worth $400 million, Mr Brooks would comfortably sit among the top 50 richest people in the state.

Also sitting on the list is the family of the late Barry Patterson, a founder of mining services businesses Eltin and GR Engineering, and a major backer of Sonic Healthcare.

Sitting at or around $300 million is Greg Poland, whose Strzelecki Group has been one of the state’s most successful property developers.

Also around that level is highly regarded investor Simon Lee, who has made a pile from several major mining plays over decades and is understood to be returning to Perth following a long period of absence, as a resident at least.

Another name to watch for is fund manager Willy Packer, whose investment prowess has earned him a fortune estimated to around $200 million.

Others who are likely to enter the Rich List with fortunes sitting about $200 million are the Bird family, who sold their Paramount Safety Products business to private equity in 2021.

While a significant proportion of that sale price remains locked up in equity, they are active participants in the Protective Industrial Products business, which is rolling up other players in the sector. Tim Bird sits on the board of the Australian business.

Another name to add to the list is the Canci family, who sold their Freo Group to part of Warren Buffett’s famed investment conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway for an estimated $160 million in 2011.

Wheatley leaves legacy beyond the automotive

The Rich List has no shortage of those who have made their fortunes from automotive retailing, but Vern Wheatley was the most successful of all.

The man who built Automotive Holdings Group into one of the country’s largest dealership groups passed away in August at the age of 89.

Mr Wheatley built on the business started by his father, Sydney, becoming the executive chairman of the firm in 1968. He held that position until 2004 when he retired, a year before listing AHG on the stock market.

He remained a director for a short period before passing the baton to daughter Michelle Prater.

AHG ultimately became part of another national player, Eagers Automotive in 2019.

Through a significant stake in Eagers, the family still has more than a quarter of its fortune directly in the automotive sector from which its wealth was derived. Ms Prater remains on the Eagers board and also chairs the family’s key investment vehicle, APPL.

But, like all of the richest car dealers – including the Young family, Bob Fowler, John Hughes, the Van Helvoort family, Bob Peters and Tyson Sutton – much of the value of the Wheatley’s empire remains in the land on which their business was built.

A great deal of the family’s wealth is tied up in land that housed their dealerships, and in many cases is still used for that purpose.

One of AHG’s original dealerships was the former City Motors on Newcastle Street, West Perth.

That site is currently being redeveloped by family company APPL into a mixed-use project to be known as Sydney Charles Quarter, in honour of Mr Wheatley’s father.

APPL pressed the button on the $107 million redevelopment earlier this year after receiving approval a year ago for a hotel and apartment complex.

The family was valued at $760 million when Business News published its inaugural WA Rich List earlier this year, but the move to redevelop in West Perth, possibly self-funded, highlights their property interests in a strong market, which has helped nudge their estimated fortune to $825 million.

Mr Wheatley and his wife, Jo, supported a broad range of community organisations and were considered one of Perth’s most philanthropic families, despite not publicising their activities.

The family’s philanthropy seems mostly directed at education, including the Wheatley Family Foundation Scholarships awarded each year by Curtin University, and generosity towards Wesley College, which Mr Wheatley attended from 1947 to 1951.