7 Greeks among the richest people in Australia
7 Greeks are among the richest people in Australia, according to the list published by «The Australian Financial Review». The richest person in Australia is Harry Triguboff with his wealth estimated at 10,62 billion dollars.
The richest Greek in Austalia is yet another time Con Makris with a fortune of $1,17 billion dollars. Con Makris is the only Greek billionaire in Australia.
See the richest Greeks in Australia:
He is in the 45th place with a fortune f $1,17 billion dollars. Con Makris has a word of advice for budding entrepreneurs: don’t trust the “crazy sharemarket”, concentrate on investing in bricks and mortar. The Adelaide property magnate built his wealth from modest beginnings, working seven days a week and 14 hours a day in his barbecue chicken shops. He expanded into property development and shopping centre ownership in the 1980s, mostly in South Australia and Queensland. Makris Group is currently building the $200 million Sheraton Hotel and apartments in north Adelaide, while Makris has his City Cross Shopping Centre in Adelaide’s CBD on the market for about $120 million.
He is in the 62nd place with a fortune of 879 million dollars. One of the most influential identities in rugby league, Nick Politis is also growing rapidly wealthier thanks to his large investments in car dealerships. Politis is a director and major shareholder of the listed A.P. Eagers car sales business, which is surging in value, and owns a string of dealerships through his private company WFM Motors. Politis is well known for his City Ford dealerships in Sydney, which he started in 1974 after buying the Wright Ford dealership. But he is even better known as the chairman of NRL club Sydney Roosters, and is one of the main powerbrokers in the sport. Politis also has significant property investments, and bought the historic Heckelmann’s Building in the Brisbane CBD for $15.5 million in February.
He is in 95th place with a fortune of 626 million dollars. Harry Stamoulis is doing plenty of buying and selling as he builds his Stamoulis Property Group empire. In February he bought the One Collins Street tower in Melbourne from fellow Rich 200 member Robert Magid for about $125 million. That deal came after Stamoulis had offloaded a William Street building for $45.9 million and while he has another Melbourne CBD building, in Spencer Street, on the market for $120 million. Stamoulis is the son of the late Spiros Stamoulis, who built the successful Melbourne-based Gold Medal Soft Drinks before moving into property. The Stamoulis family funds Melbourne’s Hellenic Museum and owns Greek media assets such as the 3XY radio station and Ta Nea newspaper.
He is in 96th place with a fortune of 622 million dollars. The continued struggles of nickel miners around the world show just how good the timing was for Kerry Harmanis when he sold Jubilee Mines in 2007. The $3.1 billion overall deal with resources giant Xstrata, when nickel prices were trading at record highs, reaped Harmanis about $500 million. Since then the former barrister, whose father Louis once developed an iron ore mine south of Darwin, has kept an extremely low profile around his home town of Perth. Harmanis has kept his hand in the mining game though, holding several investments in listed emerging resources companies. Among those is Talisman Mining, which has copper and nickel projects in Western Australia.
5. Theo Karedis
He is in 109th place with a fortune of 573 million dollars. Theo Karedis launched the Theo’s Liquor chain that sold out to Coles in 2002 for $175 million in cash and shares. Since then he and the family business, Arkadia Property Services, have been buying pubs, hotels and homemaker centres. The family teamed with the Laundy family to buy the beachfront Crowne Plaza Terrigal hotel on the NSW central coast for about $60 million earlier this year. The wealthy investors snapped up the 176-room Sheraton Noosa last year for $110 million and have held Sydney’s Manly Pacific Hotel since 2003. Karedis arrived in Australia from the Greek island of Kythera in 1955, going into business by opening a small delicatessen in Sydney’s Neutral Bay.
He is in 182nd place with a fortune of 361 million dollars. Travel mogul Spiros Alysandratos made a $9 million profit when the struggling Helloworld listed travel agency, of which the Greek immigrant was a significant shareholder, merged with AOT Group this year. Alysandratos’ wealth was also buoyed by a stronger performance for his Consolidated Travel, which provides wholesale ticketing services to travel agencies and supplies back office operations to foreign airlines in Australia. He was inspired to begin the business in 1967, after having trouble booking a flight back to Europe. Consolidated Travel’s revenue is now more than $100 million annually. Alysandratos also owns half of Express Travel Group and has several commercial properties in Melbourne’s CBD.
He is in 189th place with a fortune of 336 million dollars. Switzerland-based George Koukis believes his banking software group Temenos is in a good position to take advantage of increasing regulation in the financial services sector around the world. More regulation means banks are forced to upgrade their systems to comply. Koukis has retired as the executive chairman of Temenos, which he bought for less than $1 million in 1993, but remains on the board and is an active investor. He also owns software engineering firm Stromasys and is chairman of London’s Classical Opera company. Temenos is listed on the Swiss stock exchange and has market capitalisation of more than $4.5 billion. It acquired two companies, Akcelerant and Multifonds, last year to fuel long-term growth.
