Positions
Prime Minister's Business Advisory Council
Disbanded advisory council
Australia's best-known rag trader took the reins of his father's small business when he was 18 and built it into a clothing, footwear and toy empire. Sold stake in country's second-biggest retailer Coles for $950 million in 2007. More typical: repeatedly buys stakes in related businesses, resulting in a network of companies that are often supplied by his other outfits. Among them entity that owns French Connection and Nine West shoe stores in Australia.