Mining entrepreneur Nathan Tinkler, and the new owner of the Newcastle Jets football club, is back on the top of BRW magazine's list of the richest Australians aged 40 and under.
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The Queenslander has almost doubled his wealth to $610 million in the past 12 months, propelling him from third place in last year's list to the No. 1 spot. He previously held this position in 2008.
Insurance builder/repairer company Pattersons Insurerbuild co-owner Nicole Patterson from Victoria is the richest woman on the list with $61 million. This is shared with her husband, Stuart, and places them in the No. 30 spot overall.
Collectively, the total wealth of the entrepreneurs on the list jumped almost 7 per cent to $6.3 billion, which BRW Young Rich editor John Stensholt attributed to a couple of successful deals made by the top 5.
"It's been the year of the deal for the people on the list in a time when floats are hard to get away on the ASX and bank financing is hard to get for small business," Stensholt said.
"Tinkler basically used $25 million of his own money and raised $450 million to buy a coalmine in Queensland last year. He turned that into basically a $1.2 billion float of Aston Resources and his part of that is worth about $400 million. It was the biggest float of the year."
Tinkler was followed on the list by two London-based hedge fund managers - Greg Coffey with $406 million and Hilton Nathanson with $395 million.
Another of the big deals was in the technology sector, landing Sydney-based Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar, owners of Atlassian, into the No. 5 spot.
BRW valued their combined wealth at $314 million following a successful deal with a US based venture capital firm.
"Technology is the [industry with the] highest [number of entrepreneurs] on the list, which is in contrast to the Rich 200, which is property or mining so it's the young guys doing all the online and technology ventures and doing well out of them," Stensholt said.
Victoria had the highest number of entrepreneurs for the second year running with 29, followed closely by NSW on 28. More of the entrepreneurs lived abroad (17) than in Queensland (15), Western Australia (6), South Australia (3), the ACT (1) and the Northern Territory (1).
Stensholt said it was disappointing that the number of women on the list had dropped from 13 to seven this year.
Some - such as actors Cate Blanchett and Naomi Watts - no longer qualified because of their age, but were only replaced by one new woman, Kristina Karlsson, owner of stationery retail chain Kikki-K. She was ranked 92 with wealth of $22 million and was one of 25 new entrants.
"I think it shows it is still very hard for women to get ahead in corporate Australia and that it is still hard to be a female entrepreneur," Stensholt said.
Last year's No. 1, Adelaide property developer Ross Makris, was dropped from this year's list.
Stensholt said this was because Makris was about to turn 41 and had merged his company with his father's.
The BRW Young Rich list ranks the top 100 young Australians who have made their fortune through their own business dealings rather than through inherited wealth.
BRW is owned by Fairfax Media, publisher of this site.
