Published in the March/April 2010 RESOURCESTOCKS

The list shows the particular companies that have been responsible for each person’s wealth.

While the majority on the list have accumulated their wealth through direct involvement in individual companies, others have leveraged off one stock to build a formidable balance over the past calendar year. These include Brian Bruce and Roger Rees (5), Ken Talbot (7), Mark Creasy (14) and Robert Healy (24).

John Andrew Henry Forrest is back on the top of the pile. Although still under his 2007 total of $A5.4 billion, he is almost 50% better off than last year with a total of $4.476 billion.

Private companies feature strongly again with Gina Rinehart checking in at an estimated wealth of $3.9 billion, brother and sister team Angela Bennett and Michael Wright of Wright Prospecting with $610 million and Clive Palmer, who is associated with a number of companies and projects, on $157.5 million.

We offer our apologies to anyone who has had their wealth under-estimated. The task of locating the many investments made through private companies by some of the bigger investors in Australian resources is a daunting one.

The RESOURCESTOCKS Rich List is calculated from shareholdings in companies rather than personal earnings or wealth, and draws from several sources, including annual reports lodged with the Australian Securities Exchange.

This year’s list shows a gap of more than $200 million separating the top six from seventh place, although a measure of the Australian market’s improvement is that the 100th position this year has a wealth estimate of $24 million compared to $9.15 million for the same position in the 2008 list.

Australia’s major mineral exports – iron ore and coal – dominated in terms of critical mass in this year’s rankings, and showed the ability of individual iron ore and coal companies to generate investor wealth.

Iron ore producers Fortescue Metals Group and Grange Resources had representatives in the top 20 along with private companies Hancock Prospecting and Wright Prospecting, while Aquila Resources and Whitehaven Coal were the stand-outs for the coal industry.

Coal helped a former industry leader in Ken Talbot to establish a commodities investment company. The former Macarthur Coal boss recently sold off his holding in Riversdale Mining, but that investment was only one among several stakes in energy, copper, gold and uranium companies.

Another coal magnate and a new entry to the top 10, US-domiciled businessman Hans Mende lobbed into eighth position with $399 million.

German born and Cologne educated, Mende has a deep interest in the Hunter Valley coal industry through Whitehaven Coal, a leading coal miner in the Gunnedah Basin.

He is one of the founding partners of AMCI Capital, a leading US private equity house specialising in global energy and resources investments.

Another new entry to the top 10 is Zero Nominees, the investment vehicle for Brian Bruce and Roger Rees, with its wide range of investments headed by Clough Limited. They ranked 13th last year with $126.5 million and moved up to fifth this year with $721.6 million.

Many resource analysts advise clients to include WorleyParsons in their portfolios for good reason. Chief executive John Grill and Bill Paterson would concur as they are both in the top 20 as a result of their shareholdings, with Grill improving a cool $500 million over last year’s total to $974 million to be in third place behind iron ore magnates Andrew Forrest and Gina Rinehart.

Research would show investors that WorleyParsons played an important role in the development of the Fortescue Metals Group iron ore project in Western Australia’s Pilbara region, although FMG would be only one of many resource companies listed as clients of the engineering giant.

Major investments by overseas interests have diluted many shareholdings and created a subculture of “representative investors”, which we have endeavoured to eliminate in our research.

The disappearance of several major companies, such as Felix Resources and Queensland Gas Company, the amalgamation of Queensland coal interests under the Macarthur Coal banner, the downgrading of OZ Minerals and a number of value fade-outs has caused significant changes to the wealth landscape, probably even more so since the Rich List cut-off date.

The slide in the prices of zinc, copper and nickel during 2008-09 has had a major effect on many commodity stocks while the gold price, although holding at record levels, has not necessarily been reflected in the share prices of gold stocks.

Commodity prices have an impact on share prices and the domino effect means that investor wealth contracts.

Margin calls have had a hand in reducing shareholder wealth and will continue to play an important role as investors get caught by market twists and turns.

Robert Friedland’s Ivanhoe Australia gave copper a top 20 spot ahead of the first gold investors in our 2009 list – Josef and Sami El-Raghy with Centamin Egypt, which delisted from the ASX on January 29 this year.

Inés Scotland is the next gold investor with $95.5 million from the Citadel Resource Group, followed by Lee Seng Hui with $65 million from Tanami Gold and Jake Klein with $52.6 million from Eldorado (formerly Sino Gold), William Phillips at $52.3 million from Medusa Mining and Frank Carr of Carrick Gold with $50.5 million.

Western Areas director Terry Streeter is the first of the nickel investors to appear in this year’s list, finishing with an estimated $148.7 million, up from $104.3 million last year.

Peter Bond, managing director of coal-to-liquids technology company Linc Energy, remained in the top 10 – just – with an estimated $336.6 million, down from number three in 2008 when he had $540.1 million, while Anthony Poli was another to gain through his major holdings in Aquila Resources, Red Hill Iron and Trafford Resources, up from $290.8 million to $829 million.

Aquila Resources also proved to be a major wealth generator for Charles Bass, Derek Cowlan, Neil Lithgow, Geoffrey Pigott and Milvia Poli, who all feature in the top 100. Notably, Bass has jumped to ninth place with $359 million from 14th place last year.

Cape Lambert executive chairman Tony Sage provided a conundrum for the researchers regarding his 5.14% held issued capital in the company, but it was decided to include Cape Lambert’s subsidiary companies, giving him an estimated shareholding wealth of $44 million and placing him 55th. Without the subsidiaries he would have been listed as 129th.

Please click on the pdf document to the right of screen under related links and downloads to view the complete list.