New faces among NZ's richest

There are 19 newcomers to the NBR Rich List, some of the fresh faces include:

Peter Thiel

Peter Thiel, the Facebook billionaire who quietly became a New Zealand citizen in 2011, is the wealthiest new-entrant to the rich list this year.

Thiel spent only 12 days in the country before being made a citizen by then-Minister of Internal Affairs Nathan Guy, who used an "exceptional circumstances" clause to make it happen.

An early investor in Facebook and the founder of Paypal, NBR puts Thiel's wealth at $3.7 billion.

US magazine Forbes puts his wealth at a similar level at US$2.7b ($3.62b).

Brendan Lindsay

Brendan Lindsay started out in the 1980s building plastic coat-hangers in a half-built garage in Cambridge.

He is now among the country's wealthiest after selling the company he started, Sistema, for $660 million last year. NBR puts his wealth at $595m.

Sistema, which Lindsay sold to US Fortune 500 company Newell Brands, makes a range of plastic storage containers, with offices in Australia, UK, France, Scandinavia and the US, and has an extensive distribution network.

Chris Liddell

Former Carter Holt Harvey chief executive Chris Liddell has appeared on the Rich List after being appointed to the Trump Administration and disclosing his assets.

After being named a director of strategic initiatives for the White House Strategic Development Group, Liddell disclosed assets worth between $105m and $280m.

NBR estimates his wealth at $120m. Liddell became well-known in New Zealand business circles in the 1990s, rising through its ranks to become the boss of Carter Holt Harvey, before he relocated to the United States in 2002 to climb larger corporate ladders.

In 2005 he was appointed chief financial officer of Microsoft, then performed the same job for General Motors - helping engineer a record US$23b refloat of the company after the turbulence of the global financial crisis.

Mowbray family

The Mowbray family, who own Kim Dotcom's former mansion in Coatesville, run Kiwi toy company Zuru.

Most parents will be familiar with some of Zuru's products, Fidget Cubes, Nimuno Loops and the Bunch O Balloons toy, capable of filling and tying 100 biodegradable water balloons in a minute - every child's water fight dream.

Nick, Mat and Anna Mowbray, who all work in the business and who NBR says are worth $120m, have come a long way since the days of selling kitset hot air balloons from their garage.

Other newcomers on NBR's rich list and how much NBR says they are worth:

• Soichiro Fukutake $1.4 billion
• Peter Harris $210 million
• Michael Guthrie $200 million
• Hutchison family $200 million
• Hugh Jones $155 million
• McPhail family $150 million
• Murray Bolton $142 million
• P Law family $100 million
• Chris Heaslip $56 million
• Carmel & Hugh Fisher $55 million
• Sir Graeme Harrison $55 million
• Eliot Crowther $52 million
• Brian Fitzgerald $50 million
• Murray Holdaway $50 million
• Wendell Phillips $50 million