The top 100 rich bosses in Australia revealed; Seven in acquisition deal with Nexus Energy: Midday Roundup

The BRW Executive Rich list 2014 of the 100 wealthiest bosses in Australia was released today with media magnate Rupert Murdoch topping the list with a share value in Twenty-First Century Fox Inc and News Corporation of $12.61 billion. His remuneration for the past year was reported as $31.7 million.

Second on the list is James Packer, with the value of shares in his business Crown Resorts listed as $6.24 billion. Third is Kerr Neilson of Platinum Asset Management, with the value of his shares at $2.37 billion. His remuneration was reported as $439,532.

Fourth is Kerry Stokes of Seven Group Holdings, with the value of his shares at $2.3 billion, and remuneration at $350,000. David Teoh of TPG Telecom is fifth, with shares at $1.62 billion; Gerry Harvey of Harvey Norman is sixth with a share value of $1.02 billion; Flight Centre’s Graham Turner is seventh with a share value of $805 million; and Len Ainsworth of Ainsworth Game Technology is eighth with a share value of $700.8 million.

Scientist Silvu Itescu of Mesoblast is ninth with share value of $378.1 million and tenth is Rod Jones of Navitas with a share value of $340.3 million.

Seven acquires Nexus Energy

Seven Group Holdings is set to acquire Nexus Energy Limited, following a merger implementation agreement in which Seven will pay for Nexus shares at $0.02 per share, subject to conditions.

Nexus reports it is facing immediate funding needs, compounded by the recent outage at its Longtom project. Nexus will receive a bridging sum of $40 million via a subsidiary company. 

Seven expects outlay will be approximately $400 million for the deal.

A shareholders’ meeting is expected to be held in June 2014 to vote on the scheme.

Shares up on open

Aussie shares have opened higher this morning, following gains on Wall Street on Friday.

The S&P/ASX200 benchmark was up 46.4 points to 5413.3 at 11:46am AEDT. Overnight on Friday the Dow Jones closed 58.83 points higher, up 0.36% to 16,323.06.