Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' US$130b fortune dwarfs the combined wealth of New Zealand's richest

Saturday, 22 February 2020

Billionaires, just like the rest of us, prefer to hang out with people of a similar status, researcher Max Rashbrooke says.

If speculation the world's richest man Jeff Bezos is in the country is correct, and he's looking to mingle with fellow billionaires, then he hasn't got many to choose from.

In 2017, with a net worth of US$160 billion (NZ$252b), Bezos overtook Bill Gates as the richest person on the planet ending the Microsoft founder's 24-year reign at the top.

Today Bezos is still the world's richest man worth an estimated US$130 billion.

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Jeff Bezos is the world's richest man, worth an estimated US$130 billion.

* Property investment, tax systems help propel super rich to greater wealth**

To put that into perspective, the 255 richest individuals and families in New Zealand were estimated to have a combined worth of $89b, according to the National Business Review's 2019 Rich List.

Nine billionaires and five billionaire families featured on last year's list, with New Zealand's perennial richest person Graeme Hart, worth an estimated $10b.

Even by international standards Hart's wealth is right up there, with Forbes ranking the 64-year-old as the 158th wealthiest billionaire on the planet.

But so valuable is Bezos' stake in Amazon that a good day on the share market for the e-commerce company can boost his wealth more in a single day than Hart's entire fortune.

Other New Zealanders estimated to be in (or close to being in) the billionaires club include PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, property tycoon Sir Robert Jones, Waikato investment brothers Richard and Christopher Chandler, the man behind Auckland's Britomart development Peter Cooper and the Mowbray siblings, who run toy company Zuru.

Researcher and journalist Max Rashbrooke, who studies wealth, said to some extent, there was not much material difference between being worth $10b or $100b.

Luxuries such as expensive properties, private jets and super yachts were affordable to any billionaire, he said.

There was however, a difference in less tangible areas such as power and influence, he said.

'You have to be a mega billionaire to have world ruling ambitions. I guess that's a difference between someone like Jeff Bezos and Graeme Hart.'

Just like regular folk, billionaires tended to surround themselves with people of a similar status, he said.

And also, as with the rest of us, they like to keep up with the Joneses, always looking over their shoulder, comparing themselves to people who have even more than them, he said.

But there was intense rivalry between billionaires, he said.

'These guys, and they are almost all guys, are hyper competitive and how much wealth they have is one way of keeping score.'

Max Rashbrooke says high wealth individuals are highly competitive, often comparing themselves with others.

It appears the super wealthy also tend to be self conscious about how much (or little) they're worth.

Rashbrooke pointed to research out of the US which showed most millionaires do not consider themselves rich, partly because they spent time with people who had more than them.

Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos' private plane was spotted at Wellington Airport on Thursday. It's not known if the 56-year-old businessman was on board the Gulfstream G650ER jet.

In Richard Conniff's book, The Natural History of Being Rich: A Field Guide, Bezos is quoted as saying 'I don't think wealth actually changes people.'

But Conniff argues that being rich does set people apart.

Peter Jackson's Gulfstream was famously used to help in the search for missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370.

'It isolates them from the general population, the first step in the evolutionary process, and it inexorably causes them to become different.

'They enter into a community with its own behaviours, its own codes , its own language and its own habits.'

Perhaps one of the most visible and widely recognised habits of the super rich, beyond making tonnes of money, was their penchant for travelling in that most exclusive and carbon unfriendly way, the private jet.

Billionaire New Zealander Graeme Hart reportedly bought a penthouse in the new XI building beside the Hudson River in New York

Bezos has a Gulfstream G650ER worth an estimated US$65 million registered to his name. This was spotted in Wellington on Thursday but it's it's not known if the 56-year-old businessman was on board.

Zuru founders the Mowbrays are known to throw lavish parties at what they've dubbed 'the toy mansion'

New Zealanders who also owned private jets include Hart and film-maker Sir Peter Jackson, who was one of 200 people worldwide who put in advance orders for a Gulfstream G650.

One of several superyachts dubbed Ulysses Graeme Hart has owned over the years.

In 2015, after being escorted off an Air New Zealand flight for not following crew instructions, Jones also bought a jet, a new Cessna Citation Mustang, with an estimated price tag of about $2m.

High value property investment was another common interest of the super rich. A New Zealand tax department report on high wealth individuals found the most popular business activity for them was property investment with 18 per cent of high wealth individuals having their wealth directly linked to property.

Bezos has extensive real estate holdings and earlier this year reportedly bought a 3600 square metre Beverly Hills mansion for US$165m, setting a record for a Los Angeles-area home.

He also owns 170,000 hectares of land in Texas and properties on both US coasts including a Washington mansion.

In 2019 Hart reportedly signed a contract for a US$34m New York penthouse in the prestigious XI building on 11th Avenue. In 2017 he also reportedly purchased a holiday home at Closeburn, Queenstown for about $24m.

Jones' fortune has ballooned thanks to a growing property empire. In 2019 he paid $10.11m for Civic Assurance House on Lambton Quay, his 18th office building in Wellington's central business district.

His company Robt. Jones Holdings (RJH) also owned other well-known Wellington CBD buildings including David Jones, Midland Chambers, Lambton Centre, Lambton House, Harbour Tower, Featherston House and The Bayleys Building.

Auckland properties include Crombie Lockwood Tower and SAP Tower in Queen St as well as the AIA building in Takapuna among others.

In 2016 the Mowbray's bought Kim Dot Com's former residence in Coatesville, Auckland for $32.5m and renamed it the 'toy mansion'. They are known for throwing lavish parties at the home originally owned by Chrisco multi-millionaire Richard Bradley.

The final must have billionaire badge of honour is a super yacht that can cross oceans, accommodate helicopters and trigger gasps of awe from onlookers in the exotic ports they berth in.

Hart's interest in super yachts are well known with the businessman ordering and on-selling multiple luxury yachts worth hundreds of millions of dollars over the years.

In 2019 Bezos was said to have purchased one of the worlds largest and most luxurious super yachts Flying Fox, however, Amazon later said this was not correct. It is not clear what boats, if any, Bezos owns.

Other high wealth Kiwis who indulge in super yachts, albeit on a more modest scale than Hart, include Sir Owen Glenn with his 34 metre yacht Ubiquitous and Sir Michael Hill's 40-metre-long luxurious catamaran, dubbed The Beast.