Brothers knock magnates from top of rich list

Two brothers have been named as New Zealand's richest men - despite never making the country's rich list before.

Richard and Christopher Chandler are worth about $4 billion, according to the National Business Review rich list, twice that of New Zealand's richest man, Graeme Hart ($2 billion), and almost twice the Todd family's estimated $2.3 billion.

The spotlight has finally fallen on the brothers after their multimillion-dollar dealings in Korean industrial conglomerates with strict disclosure rules.

Those rules revealed the stake of their Dubai-based company, Sovereign Asset Management, in at least five companies, with interests in another six.

Sovereign recently took out advertisements in South Korean newspapers urging shareholders to dump boards of corrupt companies.

Good corporate governance was how the Chandlers made their money and it was the subject of Richard Chandler's 1982 MBA thesis during his time at Auckland University.

Sovereign Asset Management buys large stakes in companies in emerging markets where asset valuation is held back by corruption or fraud. The company then agitates for better governance through its holding, and when standards rise, so does investor confidence and the share price.

The brothers, both in their mid-40s, were educated at St Paul's Collegiate in Hamilton and Auckland Grammar.

Both attended Auckland University and qualified as accountants.

Parents Bob and Maria moved to the tiny settlement of Matangi from Auckland, then eventually to Hamilton, where Bob Chandler, a former beekeeper, built up a retailing, property and manufacturing empire.

During the family's time in Hamilton, they lived in one of the city's more palatial homes on Hamilton Lake and Maria Chandler opened an upmarket department store on Victoria St known as Chandler House.

It was described at the time as the Harrods of Hamilton, selling homeware of a quality rarely seen in New Zealand in those days.

The store closed in 1985 after more than a decade of trading.

A former manager, John Millar, described the family as "nice people" who were very private.

He thought the brothers were worth closer to $3 billion: "It was $2.7 billion last we knew." He keeps in touch with Bob and Maria, who now live in Monaco. The brothers live in the south of France.