Graeme Hart
Founder & Owner, Rank Group
Graeme Hart is New Zealand's best-known self-made billionaire, the private investor behind Rank Group and the owner of one of the largest privately held packaging empires in the world. For more than a decade he topped the National Business Review Rich List as the country's wealthiest individual. On the 2026 list he ranks second, worth an estimated NZ$14.1 billion, behind Zuru's Mowbray brothers. Forbes puts his fortune at around US$10.6 billion, among the 350 richest people on the planet.
What makes Hart remarkable is not only the size of the fortune but how quietly it was built. He rarely gives interviews, keeps almost no public profile, and made his money in an unglamorous corner of industry: the cartons, cups, foil and plastic packaging that most people never think about.
How Graeme Hart Made His Money
Hart's method is the leveraged buyout. He targets underperforming, undervalued companies with steady cash flows, buys them using a large amount of borrowed money, then improves them through tighter cash management, cost-cutting and restructuring. He either holds them for the cash they generate or sells them on at a profit. It is a patient, unsentimental playbook, and he has run it at ever-larger scale for more than three decades.
From Mount Roskill to Rank Group
Hart was born in Auckland in 1955 and grew up in Mount Roskill. He left school at 16 and worked as a tow-truck driver and panel beater before starting out in business. In 1987 he completed an MBA at the University of Otago, and his thesis reportedly set out the acquisition strategy he would spend the rest of his career running. His vehicle was Rank Group, which began as a small party-hire operation in Auckland.
His breakthrough came in 1990, when he bought the New Zealand Government Printing Office at a low multiple of earnings, a deal Prime Minister David Lange was reluctant to approve. A year later he acquired the Whitcoulls Group, and within two years controlled a large share of the country's book and stationery market. The template was set: buy cheap, fix, then move up in size.
Building a Global Packaging Empire
Through the 1990s and 2000s Hart moved from New Zealand assets into food and then into packaging on a global scale. He took control of the Australian food group Burns Philp, which in turn bought Goodman Fielder, before turning his full attention to packaging, the sector that would define him. Rank Group assembled a group of businesses that make everyday items: milk and juice cartons, coffee cups, aluminium foil, water bottles and rubbish bags, including household brands such as Reynolds Wrap and Hefty.
| Year | Business acquired | What it makes | Reported price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | NZ Government Printing Office | Government printing | Around 1.4x earnings |
| 1991 | Whitcoulls Group | Books and stationery | Not disclosed |
| 2006 | Carter Holt Harvey | Timber and paper | NZ$3.3 billion |
| 2007 | SIG (Switzerland) | Beverage cartons | Not disclosed |
| 2008 | Alcoa packaging (Reynolds) | Consumer packaging | US$2.7 billion |
| 2010 | Pactiv (Hefty) | Food packaging | About US$4.4 billion |
By the 2010s Hart controlled one of the largest privately owned packaging groups in the world, spanning North America, Europe and Asia.
The 2020 Float and the 2025 Sale
In 2020 Hart floated Reynolds Consumer Products, the maker of Reynolds Wrap and Hefty, on the Nasdaq, and separately listed Pactiv Evergreen, keeping control of both. Then in 2025 he agreed to sell his controlling stake in Pactiv Evergreen as part of a takeover by the United States packaging group Novolex, a deal reported to value his holding at around US$2.5 billion. It was one of the largest single moves of his career, and a sign that he was willing to cash out of assets he had held for years.
Is Graeme Hart the Richest Man in New Zealand?
For most of the past 15 years, yes. Hart topped the NBR Rich List as New Zealand's richest individual year after year. On the 2026 list he was overtaken at the very top by brothers Nick and Mat Mowbray, whose toy company Zuru is valued at around NZ$20 billion between them. Measured as a single person rather than a pair, Hart remains the wealthiest self-made New Zealander, and by a wide margin the country's dominant figure in global industry.
The Quiet Billionaire
Hart is famous for how little he is seen. He rarely speaks to the media and has described his wealth as a by-product of the work rather than the goal. The most visible sign of the fortune is Ulysses, one of the largest private explorer yachts in the world. His story, from a teenage tow-truck driver to the owner of a global packaging empire, is one of the most improbable wealth-creation stories New Zealand has produced.
See where Hart ranks among the richest people in New Zealand, or read our look at New Zealand's quiet billionaires and what the country's biggest founders did next.
Sources: Wikipedia · Forbes · NBR Rich List 2026 · RNZ
About this profile
This profile was researched and written by Noteworthy using publicly available sources. If something here is out of date or incorrect, let us know and we’ll review it.
