James Packer is joined on the Rich 200 list this year by sister Gretel, after the pair agreed to a split of the family’s business affairs. That and a falling Crown Resorts share price account for the drop in Packer’s wealth. Crown, which owns casinos in Melbourne, Perth, Macau, Manila and London, has taken a series of hits, including the delay of its $2 billion hotel and gaming project at Sydney’s Barangaroo. Packer himself has also hit the headlines with his engagement to US pop diva Mariah Carey. He now spends more time outside Australia, particularly in Israel and Hollywood, where he part-owns entertainment and production company RatPac. His private Consolidated Press Holdings also owns fashion chain Pretty Girl, which he is considering selling.

Gina Rinehart’s five-year reign as Australia’s richest person is over, due to falling iron ore prices and the transferring of a quarter of her wealth to daughter Bianca, who debuts on the Rich 200 this year. Bianca now controls the family trust that holds about 23 per cent of Hancock Prospecting, the iron ore miner chaired by Gina Rinehart. The company’s giant Roy Hill mine celebrated its first shipment to China in March, fulfilling a long-held dream of Rinehart’s. She also had a victory last October after winning a court case against Rio Tinto, which was ordered to pay $200 million in royalties. Hancock was established by Rinehart’s late father Lang Hancock, who pegged vast mining areas of Western Australia’s Pilbara region.

No one’s wealth on the Rich 200 fluctuates quite like that of Andrew Forrest, the chairman and major shareholder of iron ore producer Fortescue Metals Group. A year after his wealth halved as iron ore prices plunged, Forrest’s fortune rose after FMG announced in March a joint venture with Brazilian miner Vale to create a special blend of iron ore to export to China, and that Vale could take a 15 per cent stake in FMG in the future. The deal came as doubts about Forrest’s acumen were once again raised, and he looks set to prove the critics wrong once more. He founded FMG in 2003 after a stint in stockbroking, then time as chief executive of Anaconda Nickel. Forrest also has extensive agriculture investments.

A member of every Rich 200 list since its inception in 1983, Harry Triguboff has no intention of slowing his pace as the Sydney property boom continues. Already the biggest apartment developer in town, his Meriton Group has plans to build 5500 more units and keeps buying sites, funded by the sale of apartments he’s held as investments. He’s made money renting them out as rents kept rising. The billionaire is famously averse to taking on bank debt, having survived the credit crunch of the early 1970s, when he refused to sell parts of his business despite heavy pressure from the banks. Triguboff has also knocked back offers from Chinese investors to sell Meriton, either fully or in part.

John Gandel’s wealth has been boosted considerably by the continuing good performance of his Chadstone Shopping Centre in Melbourne, the largest in the southern hemisphere. Chadstone, which Gandel jointly owns with listed Vicinity Centres, became the first Australian shopping centre to deliver a moving annual turnover of more than $1 billion. It is undergoing major extensions, adding more shops, office space and a hotel. Gandel also owns a big stake in Vicinity and has been a long-time shareholder in the strongly performing construction software business Aconex. He bought Chadstone 31 years ago, selling his interest in clothing group Sussan to fund the deal.

Ivan Glasenberg, the boss of Swiss mining and commodities trading group Glencore, is trying to ride out a storm. Glencore shares have taken a battering in the past year, driven down by concerns over falling commodities prices and the company’s $US30 billion ($39 billion) net debt. Glasenberg holds about 8 per cent of the shares in the London-listed company. South African-born, Glasenberg gained Australian citizenship during the two years he spent in the country in charge of the company’s Asian coal commodity division. He joined the business in 1984 and was appointed to the top job in 2002.

A slowing Chinese property market accounts for the considerable drop in wealth for Hui Wing Mau, chairman of Hong Kong-listed Shimao Property. Hui has Australian citizenship following a stint studying for an MBA at the University of South Australia in the early 1990s. He later returned to China and rode the Shanghai and Beijing property booms, though conditions were more challenging in 2015, when Shimao was forced to offload excess stock in a sluggish market. The first few months of 2016 brought better news in markets such as Shanghai and Shenzhen. Shimao was reported to be the joint venture partner for the $70 million purchase of a development site in Sydney’s Erskineville late last year by B1 Group.

David and Vicky Teoh, the couple behind one of Australia’s most impressive telecommunications success stories, have attained their highest ever ranking on the Rich 200. Shares in their listed TPG Telecom continued surging in the past year, boosted by the $1.56 billion acquisition of iiNet that was finalised in August 2015. TPG also signed a $1 billion deal with Vodafone, which will carry TPG’s mobile data across Australia for the next 15 years. TPG was established as Total Peripherals Group when the Teoh family moved from Malaysia in 1986. David is the company’s chief executive and Vicky, who also owns a stake in listed vitamins company Vita Life Sciences, is a director and large shareholder.

SOURCE: BRW | RESEARCH: JOHN STENSHOLT, KELLY TALL, BRW RESEARCHERS DATA JOURNALIST: EDMUND TADROS | GRAPHIC: LES HEWITT

Anthony Pratt is riding the recovery of American manufacturing and its “reshoring” – the return of factory jobs to rust-belt states from countries such as China. He is executive chairman of the cardboard box and recycling giant Visy in Australia and Pratt Industries in the US, which is growing rapidly, building factories and recycling plants. A new factory opening this year near Chicago will add about $1 billion to Pratt Industries’ value. Pratt owns the US business, while Visy is split with his sisters Heloise Waislitz and Fiona Geminder, who also have access to half their husbands’ wealth. Alex Waislitz and Raphael Geminder run Thorney Investment Group and the Pact packaging business respectively. Pratt took the Visy leadership when his father Richard died in 2009.

Frank Lowy has increasingly been handing his various leadership roles to his three sons, Peter, Steven and David. Steven somewhat controversially succeeded his father as chairman of Football Federation Australia in November, and he and Peter are co-chief executives of shopping centre giant Westfield. But Lowy remains the group’s chairman and also devotes considerable time to the Lowy Institute for International Policy. He and the late John Saunders co-founded Westfield in the 1950s, after opening a delicatessen in Sydney’s west. Shopping centres around the country – then the US from the late 1970s – followed. David heads the private investment firm Lowy Family Group, which has considerable investments in Australia and overseas.