Things are increasingly on the up for Richard Chandler, one of just three New Zealanders to gain a place on the Forbes Rich List.

Last year, he sat at No 288 on the definitive international billionaires’ list; this year he accelerated to 230, with Forbes putting his wealth at $US4.6 billion. That is still a long way from the top spot, held by Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim ($US69 billion) but it’s a long way, too, from Mr Chandler’s rural Waikato beginnings.

It was there in 1986 that he and brother Christopher – this year No 1153 on Forbes with a wealth of $US1 billion – sold the family department store and launched their mightily-successful investment vehicle, Sovereign Global. The Sovereign group of companies had an international reach.

Two decades later, the brothers parted business company but both continued to separately develop substantial interests offshore. For Richard Chandler, those ventures have included the Singapore-based Richard Chandler Corporation (RCC.) Its mission? “To build prosperity for tomorrow’s world.”

He is also the founder of Freedom to Create, a body established to “foster prosperity in the developing world by investing in the creative foundations in society and the Freedom to Create Prize – an international award that celebrates the power of the arts.

His philanthropic interests extend to an education fund, which has programmes in Africa, Asia and Latin America. 

As well, the beekeeper’s son supports Sir Edmund Hillary’s development agency, the Himalaya Trust, in Nepal. 

Regarded as a canny investor, with a reputation for identifying undervalued assets and emerging markets, Mr Chandler earlier this year announced plans to pour $A150 million into troubled Tasmanian timber company Gunns. The company wanted to develop a pulp mill, which had won state government support but it was strenuously opposed by environmentalists.

The RCC bid, which would have seen the company hold 39% of Gunns’ shares, was withdrawn midway through valuation. 

Richard Chandler continues to make his home base in Singapore.

When he resigned as chairman of Todd Corporation last December, John Todd said goodbye to 66 years of employment. One month later he said hello to a knighthood.

Sir John, who started out in the family business as a spot welder at the Todd Motors plant in Petone, was knighted for services to business. He had chaired the Todd Corporation since 1987.

His eponymous corporation has interests covering oil, gas and power, property, wine and a large stake in Sky Television. The family also has a large stake in Australian wireless infrastructure firm Crown Castle Australia.

Energy makes up more than half the group – and that all started from what Sir John calls a “fluke” – striking gas first time at Taranaki’s Kapuni field. The Energy business now encompasses natural gas, oil, LPG, electricity, cogeneration and solar hot water systems.

In an interview recorded after he was dubbed, Sir John said Energy would not have its position today if it had not started off with 25% of Kapuni.

The family company, which began when Sir John’s grandfather Charles set up a number of ventures including a north Otago car dealership, continues to broaden its scope. Earlier this year King Country Energy signed a deal with Todd Energy to take full control of Mangahao’s power station. In May, Todd Capital took a 25% stake in a West Australian titano-magnetite iron ore development.

Sir John, meanwhile, is not putting his feet up. He’s keeping a desk at the family firm, from which he is pursuing philanthropic interests.

On his retirement, he said his family was characterised by a quote from Scottish writer John Buchan, who said success was due to: “a good stomach, capacity for hard work, and a fair measure of good luck.”

He has a law degree from the University of Washington and made his money from US property and specialty finance industries.

The title insurance firm he founded in Phoenix, Arizona, grew to become the largest in the country. In 2004 he earned No 4 spot on Forbes’ list of CEO compensation, earning $US179.56 million that year.) 

But it’s his love of wine and food that brought Mr Foley to these shores.

Now head of Foley Family Wines, he owns Vavasour, Goldwater, Dashwood, Redwood Pass, Te Kairanga and Clifford Bay wine brands in New Zealand, along with a vast number of California wineries. 

Mr Foley’s other New Zealand interests include ownership of the luxury Wharekauhau Lodge in the Wairarapa. It’s here that he stays on his regular visits to these shores. Hollywood director James Cameron is a neighbour but the two aren’t exactly swapping yarns over the fence.

Mr Foley wishes to expand and entrench his New Zealand connections. He’s looking to build an owner’s cottage on the Wharekauhau estate and to extend his wine business here. At last count he was looking at producing 650,000 cases a year and to export to Australia, the US and Canada. And he recently announced plans to buy 80% of the $46.5 million wine group called the New Zealand Wine Company.

There are also expansion plans for the luxury lodge industry. “I’d probably be interested in other lodges, just to get a little more depth,” Mr Foley says. Specifically, he’s looking at the Bay of Islands and Queenstown: “so if people came to New Zealand they could do the whole trip.”

What does he think of the billionaire label? “Someone said if you know how much you’re worth, you’re not worth very much.”

The British aristocrat and widow of the 14th Duke of Bedford has made New Zealand her principal home. She and her late husband, Henry Robin Ian Russell, first arrived 20 years ago. The couple chose Matamata as their residential place of preference over addresses including the ancestral family home of Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire, England. 

In the Waikato, they established the Bloomsbury Stud, which proved immensely successful, producing winners including Tavistock and Precedence.

Henrietta, nee Tiarks – a former model and society “it” girl of the 1950s – sold the Bloomsbury bloodstock in 2007, four years after her husband’s death. At that time, the family fortune was put at $US620 million in the Sunday Times Rich List.

In 2010, the dowager duchess and her son Andrew Russell, the current Duke of Bedford, sold their successful English stud at Woburn. The 45-year-old breeding nursery was highly regarded as an address that raised or sold prized stake winners, including the G2 winner Danceabout. 

Last year the 15th Duke of Bedford’s wealth was put at £520 million, according to the Sunday Times Rich List.

In New Zealand, Henrietta is believed to have been behind a consortium – members of which included the current duke – that bought a number of inner-city Invercargill commercial properties. She is also said to have invested more than £20 million in other extensive real estate deals elsewhere in New Zealand.

Should the family find itself short of a bob or two, it could always resort to having a quick art auction of perhaps just one of the works hanging in the family home. One painting, abandoned high on a library wall in the private apartments at Woburn Abbey, was earlier this year confirmed as a genuine and authenticated Rembrandt. The identification puts the work – known as The Old Rabbi – in the multi million pound bracket. (A portrait of a young man by Rembrandt set a world record when it sold for £20 million at Christie’s in 2009).

The Dowager Duchess, who declined to be interviewed, has homes in Matamata and Parnell. She maintains close ties with the racing set.