Twiggy Forrest looks likely to drop from third to fifth on this year’s list thanks to a 25% fall in the value of Fortescue Metals Group in the last 12 months. Forrest, who has watched his fortune bounce as high as $9.4 billion in 2008 to as low as $2.4 billion in 2010, isn’t likely to lose much sleep over the fall – he is a man used to the ebb and flow of the commodities cycle.
It’s been a pretty busy year for James Packer, who has emerged from what appeared to be a sell-off of his private investments to buy stakes in online businesses including Catch of the Day, Deals Direct and Temando. In addition, his stake in Consolidated Media has risen nicely in recent weeks thanks to speculation that he could sell to News Corporation or Telstra, while Crown Limited shares have been steady across the year. His fortune should tick up from just under $4.16 billion to around $4.4 billion.
Property prices across the country have been soft in the last 12 months, but with Meriton Apartments chief Harry Triguboff it’s all about Sydney and all about unit prices, which have fallen 1.8% over the last year. That would suggest Triguboff’s fortune has fallen slightly from last year’s $4.3 billion, with James Packer sneaking past him in the top 10 rankings.
Chadstone shopping centre owner John Gandel took some money off the table last year, selling a stake in the Northland shopping centre in Melbourne for $455 million. This deal and a very small increase in the value of his stake in CFS Retail Trust should see his fortune tick up slightly. Chadstone is set for a major redevelopment – Gandel’s fortune is now tightly tied to the centre.
Queensland coal baron Chris Wallin keeps an extraordinarily low profile, so figuring out exactly how a 20% fall in coal prices may have affected his business is not easy. Assuming a 20% cut to his 2011 valuation of $3.1 billion suggests the empire is now worth $2.5 billion. It’s a rough estimate, but Wallin remains a man of mystery.
Here’s my thinking on Palmer. The failure to launch the Resourcehouse float last year and the subsequent delays to the China First project that the company is developing mean you have to severely discount the value of this company – perhaps to as low as $500 million. However, a deal last month in which Chinese conglomerate Citic Pacific paid Palmer’s company Mineralogy $US200 million for the rights to mine another billion tonnes of magnetite iron ore in Western Australia is important.
Citic has now paid Palmer $US615 million in total, and will pay him a royalty of $180 million next year regardless of whether its project goes ahead. If the project is successful, royalties could be as high as $400 million a year – but there are some “ifs” there. If we assume Palmer’s Citic deal pays royalties of $100 million a year, and we apply a multiple of 10, then his total take from the project could be as high as $1.5 billion. Add the Resourcehouse pile and some other assets and we’re looking at around $2.3 billion. But that is an optimistic reading – and it’s a long way from last year’s $5 billion.
Andrew Sadauskas is a former journalist at SmartCompany and a former editor of TechCompany.
