Fortescue Metal Group’s founder Andrew `Twiggy’ Forrest has been propelled to the top of a national executive rich list, thanks to China’s insatiable appetite for Australian iron ore
Mr Forrest is the nation’s wealthiest executive with shareholdings valued at $6.23 billion, up from $4.79 billion last year, according to BRW magazine.
The annual BRW Executive Rich List names the 200 richest executive directors and senior managers of Australia’s 500 biggest publicly listed companies.
It is based on ordinary shares shareholdings in the companies they manage.
Fortescue’s chief executive traded places with last year’s number one, media mogul Rupert Murdoch.
The News Corporation chief executive’s shareholdings were $5.68 billion, down from $5.96 billion previously.
The wealth of the 200 executives on the list has increased by nearly 75 per cent.
Nearly half of the business managers ran resources or mining companies, supporting the theory of a resources boom-led two-speed economy.
“The prevalence of miners on this year’s list demonstrates the changing shape of our share market,” BRW said.
“There has been a lot of talk lately about a two-speed economy and this years list supports this.”
Mr Forrest topped the overall rich list in 2008 before his wealth was hit by the global financial crisis.
The total wealth of the executives on the list was $35 billion, compared to $20.3 billion a year ago, with 81 of the top 200 involved in resources or mining services.
The cut-off point to make this year’s list rose 30 per cent to $12.5 million from 2010, with 55 executives from last year not making it.
James Packer from Crown and Consolidated Media Holdings was third on the latest list, with $3.6 billion.
Just four women were on the 2011 list, including Harvey Norman’s Katie Page, who was the richest female executive, in 66th overall position with $50.8 million.
Her husband, Gerry Harvey, the company’s executive chairman, was in seventh place at $932.8 million.
Among the departures from last year’s list were Chris Morris from Computershare and former Virgin Blue boss Brett Godfrey.