If the rich list were excluded today, a further drop in Atlassian shares would have reduced their wealth to about $20 billion each, close to their valuation on last year’s list.

The sale of technologies has damaged the fortunes of another powerful technology team. Canva founders Melanie Perkins, Cliff Obrecht and Cameron Adams collectively lost billions as the Nasdaq’s fall punished valuations, even for private tech companies.

Perkins and Obrecht, who are married, rank 10th with a combined wealth of $13.8 billion. That’s less than the $16.5 billion they got when the Young Rich List was released in October, but up 75% from the wealth they held on the 2021 Rich List.

Despite the sale of technology, the Rich List 2022 marks a banner year for wealth creation. Rising iron ore, real estate and solid gains in manufacturing – and the fact that tech was still well up overall – widened the gap between the top of the list and the rest .

The complete list is published inside AFR Magazine on Fridays and online at afr.com.

Wealth record

The overall wealth of the 10 richest people represents 40% of the record of $554.9 billion held by this year’s Rich Listers. Collective wealth was $479.6 billion in 2021.

To make this year’s list, you needed at least $629 million to qualify. That’s a record high and almost double the $342 million needed to get there just five years ago.

There are 13 newbies on the rich list, 37 women and four people who have returned, including Flight Center founder Graham Turner and Judy Turner, who operates their Spicers Retreats business, after a two-year hiatus.

Yet, while some come back, others plummet dramatically. Last year, Larry Diamond sat on a $598 million hoard, profiting from the global expansion of his Zip Co.

Now he is in the crosshairs of the market gutting of the buy now, pay later sector. Investors rush for the exit as losses mount, fears of tougher global regulations to curb rising unscrupulous lending and rising inflation fuel fears of new bad debt.

Zip Co’s market capitalization fell from around $6 billion a year ago to just $700 million when the listing was calculated, leaving Diamond with a much smaller fortune at around $70 million.

For companies in more traditional sectors like manufacturing and real estate, it was a year of improving returns.

Demand for packaging, spurred by increased online shopping, has boosted Anthony Pratt’s cardboard box maker Visy, helping him and his two sisters, Fiona Geminder and Heloise Pratt , to build their wealth to a record $24.30 billion, from $20.09 billion. They claim fifth place.

The man believed to be responsible for one in 10 units in Sydney, Meriton founder Harry Triguboff takes sixth place after boosting his wealth by $4bn to $21.21bn thanks to skyrocketing prices real estate.

He may have spent $100million trying unsuccessfully to win seats in the Australian parliament this year, but that was a drop in the bucket compared to the windfall of wealth he has had. benefited Clive Palmer over the past year.

His wealth jumped by $6.5 billion, claiming seventh place on the list, thanks in part to his 2006 royalty deal with Chinese mining giant CITIC which supercharged the royalties paid to the budding politician.

The resource boom has also seen former Glencore CEO Ivan Glasenberg join the ten-figure club, with an estimated fortune of $12.2 billion, up from $7.39 billion previously. He is in ninth place.

Rounding out the Top 10 is the man with the masterstroke for asset sales, Frank Lowy. His fortune is climbing to $9.27 billion from $8.51 billion a year ago after shrewdly investing since Westfield was sold in 2018.

There are a record 137 billionaires in Australia, up from 111 last year.