Tinkler off BRW Young Rich List top spot after $700 million loss

MINING baron Nathan Tinkler has been knocked off the top spot on the BRW Young Rich List for the first time since 2009 – and he’s now down to his last $400 million.

Mr Tinkler, who famously worked as a Hunter Valley coal pit electrician before striking it rich with a series of high-risk deals, was replaced by software entrepreneurs Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar.

Mr Tinkler slipped to second on the latest BRW Young Rich List with a fortune of $400 million.

That’s a reduction of $730 million from his $1.13 billion fortune in 2011, or equivalent to losing $14 million a week or $2 million per day. Mr Tinkler is well known for having splashed large amounts of money on a range of investments, including up to $300 million on a stable of racehorses which have brought him limited success in any major race.
The 36-year-old owner of the Newcastle Knights rugby league club, who lived in Newcastle until his recent relocation to Singapore, was ranked Australia’s 26th richest person, of any age, in February.

Mr Cannon-Brookes and Mr Farquhar, who founded software company Atlassian, have a combined fortune of $480 million and topped the 2012 Young Rich List, published on Wednesday.

Up from $360 million in 2011, Cannon-Brookes and Farquhar founded their company straight out of university in 2002 and shot to fame in 2010 with a $60 million investment from Silicon Valley venture capital fund Accel Partners.

Last year their enterprise software development business, whose customers include Coca-Cola, eBay, Microsoft, Nike and Ikea, turned a $102 million profit and now employs 530 people around the world.

Their success may prove a useful model to other young Australian technology entrepreneurs.

“The BRW Young Rich List shows that youth is not an impediment to success,” list editor Andrew Heathcote said.

“The young rich build fortunes quickly by being prepared to take calculated risks.”

The Young Rich List features the top 100 wealthiest self-made Australians under the age of 41.

The combined value of all those on the 2012 list was $5.1 billion – down from $7.3 billion last year.

It features just six women this year, down from eight in 2011.

The youngest debutant on this year’s list was carbon trader Nick Armstrong, 28, who shares a $22 million fortune with Geoff Alexander in emissions trading company COZero, of which the pair are co-owners.

Twenty nine of those on the list are based in NSW, 25 in Victoria, 23 are based overseas, 14 are in Queensland, seven in Western Australia, one in South Australia and one in the ACT. – with AAP