By Dominic Powell and Emma Koehn
Cardboard recycling magnate Anthony Pratt has topped the Australian Financial Review’s 2017 Rich List with a personal wealth estimated at $12.6 billion, unseating last year’s number one, property developer Harry Triguboff.
Fairfax reports the last time Pratt topped the rich list was in 2009, just after the death of his father, Richard Pratt. At the time, Anthony Pratt’s personal wealth sat at $4.4 billion, fuelled largely by Visy Industries, the Australian arm of his cardboard manufacturing and recycling empire.
The jump to $12.6 billion has been aided by the boom of the American arm, Pratt Industries, with Pratt telling Fairfax the business’ operations had more than doubled since 2009.
“We’ve more than doubled the size of the business since 2009. But it’s like that saying, ‘if I have seen further, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants’. I was very fortunate that I had my father. He was a great man and a great teacher,” he said.
“Money is a great scoreboard of success, or one of them. It’s a great honour and I feel very fortunate that I’m in a position that I can build a business.”
Ben & Jerry’s bans ice-cream double up in new push for marriage equality
Global ice-cream retailer Ben & Jerry’s has become the latest business in Australia to introduce a campaign for marriage equality, banning the sale of ice creams containing two scoops of the same flavour until same-sex marriage is legalised.
“Imagine heading down to your local Scoop Shop to order your favourite two scoops of Cookie Dough in a waffle cone. But you find out you are not allowed… you’d be furious!” the company said in a statement, reports B&T.
“This doesn’t even begin to compare to how furious you would be if you were told you were not allowed to marry the person you love.”
The campaign also includes in-store mailboxes, where customers can write letters to their local MP to ask them to support marriage equality.
“We are banning two scoops of the same flavour and encouraging our fans to contact their MPs to tell them that the time has come- make same-sex marriage legal! Love comes in all flavours!” the brand said in a statement.
ASIC bans Nathan Tinkler from managing companies
Former rich-lister Nathan Tinkler has been banned by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission from managing companies for three years and nine months.
In a statement, ASIC said his disqualification came after liquidators were appointed to eleven businesses that Tinkler had managed.
Two of Tinkler’s associates, Donna Dennis and Troy Palmer, were also disqualified from managing companies for three years and three years and nine months respectively.
ASIC said after reviewing reports from the liquidators of the failed companies, it believed the three had failed to prevent companies from trading while insolvent.
In 2016 the Federal Court declared Tinkler bankrupt over a $2.8 million debt to GE Commercial that was associated with the sale of a luxury jet.
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