Tycoons & Dynasties
The empire-builders, the family wars and the outsized personalities who shaped — and sometimes shook — Australian business.
Bond, Skase, Packer, Murdoch, Rinehart, Pratt: a handful of families and self-made operators have loomed over Australian business for generations. Some built things that lasted. Some flew too close to the sun.
Profiles and dynasty sagas, drawn from the public record.
Latest in the players
- Dick Smith: the electronics man who kept reinventing himself
Before the retail chain that bears his name collapsed under other owners, Dick Smith built three separate ventures on cheek, timing and a genius for publicity.
By Margaret Fenwick - The Smorgon family: from smallgoods to steel, and a dynasty that chose to end well
How a family fled Europe with almost nothing, built a smallgoods-to-steel empire in Melbourne, and then did something rare: wound it up on their own terms.
By Margaret Fenwick - The Myer dynasty: a Bendigo pedlar's cart and the store that became Melbourne
Sidney Myer arrived from Russia with almost nothing. He built Australia's biggest department store empire — and a family whose giving still shapes Melbourne.
By Margaret Fenwick - Richard Pratt: the migrant's son who built Visy and a very large shadow
How Richard Pratt turned a small cardboard box plant into Visy, a global packaging empire, and why the cartel case still colours his legacy.
By Margaret Fenwick - Solomon Lew: the rag trader who fought Coles Myer to a standstill
Solomon Lew built Premier Investments from Melbourne's garment trade and spent decades in the Coles Myer boardroom wars. Here's the record, plainly told.
By Margaret Fenwick - Kerry Packer: cricket, casinos and the tax line he never quite lived down
Kerry Packer built World Series Cricket, gambled in millions and told a Senate committee why he wouldn't pay more tax than he had to.
By Margaret Fenwick - Andrew Forrest: how a third force rewrote the Pilbara
Andrew Forrest built Fortescue Metals from a shell company into one of the world's largest iron ore exporters. The story is wilder than the hagiography suggests.
By Margaret Fenwick - Nathan Tinkler: the electrician who rode coal to a billion dollars and back to nothing
How a Hunter Valley sparky turned a single leveraged coal deal into Australia's largest personal fortune — and then lost it all inside a decade.
By Margaret Fenwick - The Hancock dynasty: iron ore, the Pilbara and the fortune Gina Rinehart rebuilt
Lang Hancock stumbled across the world's richest iron ore deposits in the Pilbara. What his daughter did with that discovery is an even bigger story.
By Margaret Fenwick - Gerry Harvey: the salesman who turned retail into a property empire
From Norman Ross to Harvey Norman, Gerry Harvey built one of Australia's most recognisable retail chains — and a commercial property portfolio to match. The story behind the franchise model, the controversies and the founder who never learned to stay quiet.
By Margaret Fenwick - Christopher Skase and Qintex: the empire that dissolved in the sun
How Christopher Skase built a media and resorts empire on borrowed confidence, then spent his final years fighting extradition from a Majorcan villa.
By Margaret Fenwick - The Packers: three generations of Australian power, money and gamble
From Frank's Depression-era tabloids to Kerry's television monopoly to James's casino empire, the Packer dynasty reshaped Australian business — and ultimately fractured under its own weight.
By Margaret Fenwick