New Zealand's richest woman Lynette Erceg likes to keep a low profile, with scant mention of her online and few photos. The same goes for her son Matthew.
Erceg's husband, the late liquor magnate Michael Erceg, died aged 49 in a 2005 helicopter crash. His Independent Liquor company was sold for a nose-bleeding $1.2 billion to private equity buyers Unitas Capital and Pacific Equity Partners in 2006, although court documents show Lynette Erceg retained a 13% stake as part of the deal. The company was on-sold to Asahi for $1.5 billion in 2011 but the Japanese beverage giant was later repaid $A199m of that price tag after taking the sellers to court alleging they had misrepresented how profitable the company was.
Before his death, Michael Erceg had transferred his Independent Liquor shares into two trusts, the Acorn Foundation and Independent Group Trust. Both trusts had a number of unnamed beneficiaries and were wound up in 2010.
A family squabble over the funds allocated by the trusts was aired publicly, although many details were suppressed. Both Michael Erceg's mother Millie and his brother Ivan unsuccessfully applied to the courts, seeking access to trust documents in order to discover who got what and why. Both were named as discretionary beneficiaries but got no payout from the trusts.
However during Ivan Erceg's Supreme Court hearing on the issue it emerged he had already been paid $95m under his brother's will. Ivan Erceg, a former superyacht builder, was declared bankrupt in 2010 and discharged in 2014 and is now believed to be living overseas.
Lynette Erceg has long-owned a 15.1ha south Auckland property with a rating valuation of $5.75m which has risen substantially in value since 2014. Although many of her assets are held in trust, she has extensive property interests including commercial property in Queenstown valued at $7.9m and a house in the Remuera suburb of Auckland valued at $25m.
In 2013 she bought a dairy farm in Matamata for more than $21 million and is the sole shareholder in dairy and poultry producer Thistlehurst Dairy. And she is listed as a director and sole owner of high country station Lake Ohau Station in the Mackenzie country.
Erceg also co-owns Hamilton-based wine producer Mystery Creek Wines which has 12ha of planted vines in the central North Island just south of Cambridge, and some 200ha of planted vines in the Waihopai Valley in Marlborough. The boutique winery also sources grapes from Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay and Central Otago.
2018: $1.8 billion