All eyes on Stokes for ConsMedia bid

Seven Group chief Kerry Stokes is looming as the wildcard in the battle for Australia’s pay TV industry, with reports today suggesting Stokes could take on Rupert Murdoch by launching a counter offer for James Packer’s pay TV group, Consolidated Media.

Australia's 20 most powerful rich crusaders

This week we begin profiling Australia's most influential Rich Crusaders, the people who use their cash to influence public debate and promote causes they believe in. Here, Paul Barry presents the shortlist.

Clive Palmer’s 'extraordinary' billboards in Brisbane

Just in case Brisbane residents haven't heard of Clive Palmer, the mining magnate's splashing his own face across a number of billboards in the city's north.

Clive Palmer’s busy Courtroom schedule and AFL boss kicks Optus

We're not sure how Clive Palmer's going to manage his time if all the court battles he's vowed to pursue in recent months actually end up in court.

Could Gina Rinehart do the unthinkable?

Gina Rinehart isn’t known for olive branches, but that appears to be what she’s extended to the Fairfax board.

Courtroom Clive Palmer's long history of legal stoushes

Self-made billionaire and law school dropout Clive Palmer boasts that he's got a 68-0 success rate in court cases. Here's a look back at Palmer's most high-profile legal stoushes reveals he has a formidable, if not unblemished, record.

Dick Smith sets sail with Anchorage aboard

Private equity group Anchorage Capital, has been made an offer too good to refuse as a result of Woolworths' determination to exit the difficult electronics retail segment after about three decades of trying to find a format for the Dick Smith chain that worked.

Dick Smith: I support Rinehart's Fairfax raid

Entrepreneur Dick Smith has defended Gina Rinehart's Fairfax share raid, saying that more old-style media proprietors would be good for Australia.

Dick Smith’s Foods: a resort to desperate commercial Hansonism

It's a de facto marriage made in populist heaven — the unholy union between the little Aussie huckster Dick Smith and the crass, unquestioning tabloid TV of A Current Affair.

Frank Lowy’s Olympic sprint

The first Australian winner in the looming London Olympics has already emerged... it's 81-year-old Frank Lowy, who has pulled off one of his best deals ever just in time for the games, due to open in London on July 27.

Gina Rinehart’s multi-million-dollar promise

There's much more to Gina Rinehart's brutual courtroom drama than the battle to determine who controls more than $3 billion worth of assets in the Margaret Hope Hancock Trust, which was set up by Gina's father Lang Hancock in 1988.

How do you solve a problem like Clive Palmer?

Sport's battle of the billionaires just keeps on getting better. FFA boss Frank Lowy has today finally hit back at attacks by fellow rich listers Clive Palmer and Nathan Tinkler on how he runs soccer.

Is Rinehart off to Singapore too?

First it was mining billionaire Nathan Tinkler, who said he was pulling up stumps and moving to Singapore. Now it looks like another mining magnate Gina Rinehart is buying a pad there. So what's behind the rich list city-state rush?

Ita Buttrose to Fairfax: put Gina Rinehart on the board

If Gina Rinehart ever gets her way and wins a spot on the Fairfax board, there's one person she should ring for advice: Ita Buttrose.

James Packer gets a free ride from the media

Once upon a time, perhaps when James Packer’s disastrous Las Vegas casino play was tanking, a journo trying to squeeze a word out of his mouth would have hit a permanently engaged signal. Not anymore.

Nathan Tinkler and the 10 money pits that trip up the rich

From fast horses to fast cars, Tinkler has fallen into some of the classic money pits that attract the rich. Most of these indulgences are fun, while the cash is flowing. But when the pressure ramps up, as it clearly is now, the laughs can quickly turn to something else. Here are 10 money traps that Tinkler and other Rich List members fall into.

Nathan Tinkler falls to the true builders

The king is dead, long live the king. Well, kings. Nathan Tinkler’s spectacular wealth wipeout has been crystallised by the release of the first Rich List since things started to really go pear-shaped for him about two months ago.

Nathan Tinkler’s cash conundrum

It’s almost possible to see what is going on at the heart of Nathan Tinkler’s empire, but the smoke signals coming out of there suggest he is in the grips of some sort of cashflow bind.

No beaches, no tax where Tinkler’s going

There's a few things 36-year-old coal billionaire Nathan Tinkler will miss when he moves to Singapore: the surf at Newcastle, our wonderful beaches, and not being able to drive faster than 90km/h in his fleet of Ferraris, or his Bugatti Veyron.

Palmer's confidence trick won't work

Clive Palmer's attack on Campbell Newman's cuts to the public service won't work. What's called for is hard-headed reform which inflicts a measure of pain now, to avoid calamity in the years ahead.

Perth, Manila, Macau: James Packer continues to outbid his dad

Kerry Packer was once the world’s biggest and most famous casino gambler. But he often told his son he didn’t take risks in business. James, on the other hand, hardly ever plays the tables, but is happy to lay down billions of dollars of his own money to build new casinos around the world.

Rich Lister Jan Cameron's big retail misadveneture

Jan Cameron seems to have tried to run her discount retail empire like a side project. It’s been a terrible mistake. How could she have made such a big one?

Rinehart finally gets her man on Fairfax board

Billionaire mining heiress Gina Rinehart has scored a coup in her slow-burn bid for control of Fairfax, after her closest adviser and confidante accepted an invitation to join the ailing media giant’s board.

Rinehart makes a play for a Fairfax board seat

Speculation is rife that mining billionaire Gina Rinehart wants a seat on the board of Fairfax Media.

Rinehart telling porkies on Corbett interference? Ex-editors say so

Former editors of The Age have rubbished Gina Rinehart's provocative claim that Fairfax chairman Roger Corbett and his predecessor Ron Walker overrode the paper's charter of editorial independence by instructing an editor how to do his job.

Rinehart's wealth soars to $29.17 billion

According to BRW, Rinehart's wealth has soared by an incredible $18.7 billion in the space of one year to a staggering $29.17 billion. At that level, the magazine says, the queen of iron ore becomes the richest woman in the world.

Should Rinehart get a seat on the Fairfax board? The case for and against

Corporate governance experts say Gina Rinehart's big shareholding in Fairfax in no way entitles her to board representation.

Six questions for Fairfax over the blocked Rinehart play

Many will admire the Fairfax board's stand to block Gina Rinehart. But from a business standpoint, the board is now in a very difficult position and has raised some really big questions.

Swan's material defence against Palmer

As ideas go, Canadian philosopher Barry Allen has a biggie -- and one that might help untangle the 'clash of the pygmies' that has erupted between Treasurer Wayne Swan and mining's greatest ratbag, Clive Palmer.

The five trials of Gina Rinehart

A new book reveals the complex psychology and web of family relationships which define one of Australia’s most powerful people.

The many adventures of Clive Palmer

Clive Palmer’s bid to build a replica of the Titanic is yet another example of the mining magnates many, many intriguing ideas. So what are the chances of all the things he’s floated in recent years coming to fruition?

The world according to Rinehart: Fairfax, climate change and why she needs to import workers

Gina Rinehart is threatening to sell her stake in Fairfax and the mining magnate is also busy attacking climate change, foreign labour and the carbon tax. The notoriously shy billionaire has put her views on record in a statement made to the ABC's Four Corners program.

The world of rich crusaders

These wealthy Australians don't just give to charity or donate to political parties; they use their cash to crusade for what they think is right. Sometimes, it's their self-interest, sometimes it's the public interest.

The young and the restless: Rich List stars fall from grace

BRW’s Young Rich List has had more than its fair share of scoundrels and failures. Who made it big only to lose it all (almost)? Find out on Crikey’s Young Failed Rich List.

Tinkler’s four leadership strengths (and his Achilles’ heel)

Nathan Tinkler’s $4 billion bid for listed miner, Whitehaven Coal, yesterday reveals lessons in the kind of leadership that delivers wealth and success.

Twiggy gets relief, but there’s work to do

Finally some good news today for Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, the billionaire miner who has seen his fortune halve in nine months thanks to the tumbling share price of his iron ore miner Fortescue Metals Group.

Twiggy wins his battle against ASIC

The High Court today found mining billionaire Andrew Twiggy Forrest did not mislead investors and breach the Corporations Act eight years ago. The finding will come as a blow to ASIC, which has engaged in a long legal battle with Forrest.

Twiggy’s bushfire assistance ‘inspiring’

Andrew Forrest's critics say his charity efforts are just a PR play. But that's not what the people of Marysville think about him after he helped rebuild after the 2009 Victorian bushfires.

Was MONA built with the proceeds of tax evasion?

Philanthropic punter David Walsh is battling to keep his millions. So what happens to his celebrated Museum of Old and New Art if he goes down?

Where's Gina? The mysterious case of the missing Rinehart

Who is the world's coolest billionaire?

Gina Rinehart doesn't particularly fit the bill, nor does Gerry Harvey or Frank Lowy. James Packer has a bit of flair thanks to his love of rich toys, but is he really cool? Even our youngest billionaire, coal baron Nathan Tinkler, would struggle to fit snugly into the cool category.

Why Twiggy is right to cut the tomato sauce at Fortescue

The tomato sauce, the regular staff barbecues and the brewed coffee are on their way out at the iron ore mining company, Fortescue Metals Group. After narrowing escaping breaching its debt covenants, FMG is tightening its belt and searching every nook and cranny to cut costs.