Adrian ‘Lambo Guy’ Portelli has cemented his place as one of ‘s richest entrepreneurs with his debut on this year’s Rich List with an estimated wealth of $1.3billion.
Mr Portellli’s emergence on the n Financial Review’s annual wealth index at No 125 comes seven months after he entered the same publication’s Young Rich List at No 7 with $1.03billion.
The 35-year also made his first appearance on The List, The n newspaper’s inventory of the nation’s financial big shots, at No 116 in March.
Mr Portelli has made much of his fortune through promotions company LMCT+, a private lottery business which uses a legal loophole to offer prizes including homes, cars and cash.
He is best known for his aggressive bidding on The Block where he hunts houses renovated on the Nine Network reality program to give away to LMCT+’s 100,000 monthly subscribers.
Mr Portelli came to public attention in 2022 by roaring up to an auction day for The Block in a bright yellow Lamborghini.
LMCT+ operates as a ‘trade promotion’ lottery issued under a NSW licence to help businesses attract customers with rewards.
Mr Portelli owns a fleet of flashy vehicles – he has claimed to have lost count of the number but put it at fewer than 50 – and has an extensive property portfolio.
Last year he bought Melbourne’s most expensive apartment when he forked out $39million for a penthouse in the Sapphire by the Gardens development in LaTrobe Street.
Mr Portelli made headlines when he used a crane to haul his $3million Maclaren Senna GTR supercar up 57 levels to be displayed on the floor.
Despite the enormous price he paid for the pad, Mr Portelli said at the time he did not particularly like city living and preferred to be based on the Gold Coast.
Mr Portelli was raised in Melbourne’s western suburbs and dropped out of university to work for his father’s truck repair company.
He moved to Los Angeles and launched a limousine service for celebrities and established LMCT+ as an auto enthusiast club in 2018.
‘I’m always humble because where I got to wasn’t easy,’ Mr Portelli told the AFR last year when he was named on the Young Rich List.
‘Every day, I’d just wake up with the thought of being successful. I was just consumed by it. I was just a bit of a loner, mate, and used to motivate myself and just keep pushing.’
The son of Maltese immigrants, Mr Portelli and partner Karlie Butler have a 16-month son.
Laurence Escalante, founder of Virtual Gaming Worlds, is another young gun on the AFR Rich List with $3.75billion, down from $3.9billion last year, at No 34.
The 42-year-old also likes sharing images of himself with his huge garage of supercars and also owns a Lamborghini – but his is a yacht.
The top ten spots on the Rich List were mostly taken by familiar names including iron ore queen Gina Rinehart ($40.61billion) in first place, followed by real estate developer Harry Triguboff ($26.49billion).
Atlassian founder Mike Cannon-Brookes and wife Annie are third with $24.38billion, followed by packaging king Anthony Pratt and his family ($23.3billion) and Mr Cannon-Brookes’s business partner Scott Farquhar ($22.88billion).
Next come resources titans Clive Palmer ($22.75billion) and Nicola Forrest ($16.92billion), making her individual debut after separating from husband Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest.
Mr Forrest ($16.76billion) is next, with commodity trading and mining giant Glencore’s CEO Ivan Glasenberg ($14.86billion) filling the ninth position.
Husband and wife technology entrepreneurs Melanie Perkins and Cliff Obrecht round out the top ten with $13.62billion.
James and Gretel Packer, the children of late television giant Kerry Packer, have increased their wealth but dropped down the list with James ($5.69billion) at No 20 and Gretel ($2.18billion) at No 69.
Media magnate Lachlan Murdoch has a personal wealth of $3.7billion at No 35, up slightly from $3.34billion since he took control of the family empire last year.