A double billionaire? That's rich

The big surprise in this year's BRW Rich 200 – the annual ranking of the nation's wealthiest citizens – is not the reappearance of Alan Bond, although his remarkable rebound to being placed 157th with a fortune of an alleged $265 million is incredible. No, the biggest surprise is the classification of David Hains, the low-key Melbourne-based financier, as a “double billionaire” and the 10th-richest individual in Australia.

Hains is without doubt the Rich 200's weakest entry. And it is by no means his fault. He has been '¦ well '¦ “victim is hardly the right word, but the subject surely of some odd research conclusions.

Now 77, Hains is without question a very wealthy man – but a billionaire twice over ? There's no evidence. Many years ago Hains came to prominence when he ran a retail chain. At the peak of his career he became involved in a range of business enterprises. The most significant of his publicly listed activities was his brief stint as president of a steel syndicate, which briefly took control of the US-based Wheeling Pittsburgh steel corporation.

The money made by Hains in the Wheeling Pittsburgh deal has been used by the Rich 200 list as the basis of his fortune. But there is one problem: the calculation made 15 years ago assumed he got all the money made by the syndicate. In reality, he would only have received a portion of the syndicate's fortune. This Wheeling Pittsburgh “fortune” has now been compounding away in the Hains calculation and suddenly he is supposed to be wealthier than, say, Gerry Harvey, a “provable” fortune registered this year at $1.62 billion.

In more recent times, Hains has lived a quiet life mostly engaged with his Collins Street-based finance company Portland House, now run by his son Stephen. Portland House is an admirable company involved in many charities. But any tangible evidence of serious money being made at Portland House is missing, the only property holding of note is the Waterways project at Mordialloc, south of Melbourne. BRW has been so desperate to even fill a few paragraphs on the Hains story it has on occasion resorted to describing the wildlife at the Waterways project.

At various times, the magazine has tried to get some meat on the bones of the Hains story because it is impossible to relegate him down the rankings without attracting attention.

At one stage, the understanding of the Hains fortune was so minimal the valuation was simply indexed to the average annual return of BT “balanced” managed fund. More recently, the researchers had a small break when they unearthed a bond rating linked with Portland House.

But in reality, there’s nothing in the file. If Hains is a double billionaire I'll eat my copy of this year's Rich 200.

The confection that is “double billionaire” David Hains is sustained by its silence. Hains never speaks in public about his Rich 200 valuation – or anything else for that matter. In its way that's an insurance against the valuation ever unravelling.

There's one other “rich” family on the list worth more than $2.2 billion and that's the Libermans. If you're running a $2 billion operation in Australia – even a hedge fund – there is no way you can stay under the radar. The Libermans took $1 billion off the table before the Allco debacle last year, their JGL Investments crops up all over the market in myriad deals from oil to banking.

How a family such as the Hains with a purported $2 billion to manage could never – and I mean never – appear to be involved in any significant business deals for two decades and stay in the same league as the Lowys, Packers or – dare I say? – Bonds, is the biggest mystery on the Rich 200.

James Kirby was a senior writer for BRW magazine from 1998 to 2004.