Drury's new billionaire status confirmed as Xero shares rocket skyward

Xero founder Rod Drury. Photo / Mike Scott.

Despite some analyst qualms about tech stocks hitting the kind of giddy multiples last seen during the dot-com boom, Xero shares have held yesterday's huge gain - and continued heading skyward.

Xero's clocked another annual loss yesterday, but did make a slim profit ($1.4 million) profit in the second half and enjoyed its first cashflow positive year - sending its shares up 10 per cent in a session to a record high of A$60.15.

In early trading today, it rose again to $A61.77.

The Wellington-based, ASX-listed company now has a market cap of A$8.7 billion ($9.2b).

That makes the Drury family's 12.58 per cent stake in Xero worth A$1.1b ($1.2b).

Xero shares have now risen by more than 50 per cent since the cloud accounting company abandoned the local stock exchange early last year for an ASX-only listing.

Rod Drury, who founded Xero in 2006, stepped down as Xero chief executive last year, but remains a director.

2018 also saw him separate from his wife Anna.

This year has seen him keep a much lower profile. In his Twitter bio, he now bills himself as "funemployed."

Face of "funemployment" - Drury at a charity event. Photo / Warren Buckland, Hawke's Bay Today.

At Xero's full-year result yesterday, new boss Steve Vamos gave no guidance for the new financial level bar that he expected free cash flow to be a "similar' to 2019 (when Xero it was 1.2 percent or $6.5 million on revenue of $552.8m).