Who is Terry Peabody? Billionaire's jet bringing Shane Warne's body back to Australia
Cricket legend Shane Warne passed away due to a suspected heart attack on Friday, March 4 at Samujana Villas in Koh Samui, Thailand. Investigators and authorities in Thailand revealed they found bloodstains in the Australian cricketer's room. Terry Peabody, a wine and waste management multi-millionaire, is chartering the flight that is going to bring Shane Warne's body back to Australia.
Peabody is a low-profile person and was known as 'the only Australian billionaire who is not a household name' in 2005. Seventeen years later, he still remains out of the media frenzy although since he is bringing Shane Warne's body back to Melbourne, the spotlight will be on him for a while. The 82-year-old owns the Craggy Range Winery in New Zealand and has a $68 million Falcon 7X jet with its own charter license under the name of his company Brenzil. The jet is reported to be the aircraft bringing Warne's remains back to Australia.
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The global financial crisis, aka the period of extreme stress in global financial markets between mid-2007 and early 2009, affected Peabody's fortune, but he remains extremely wealthy. He was ranked 180th on the Financial Review's 2021 Rich List, with an estimated earning of $647 million. "I have an unusual background. I was born in Guam. My parents were American and we were on the last boat that left Guam before the Japanese took over. We moved to Norfolk, VA. Then, when I was nine, we moved to Japan. I was later sent to Culver Military Academy and finished at the University of Maryland," Peabody told Forbes.
Peabody discovered that fly ash, the waste from coal-fired power stations which can be used to reduce cost and improve strength in concrete, was being dumped at a substantial cost to the then-government electricity-generating authorities. He made a deal to take the fly ash away for free in return for which he was given the rights to all fly ash from all power stations forever, thus locking out any potential competitors and ensuring that customers had only one source of supply, reports Crikey.
Who is Terry Peabody?
Terry Peabody is the founder of Australia's Transpacific Industries and the owner of Craggy Range winery. Throughout the pandemic, Peabody lived in New Zealand tending to his winery business, which was established in 1998 and situated near the Te Mata Peak in Hawke's Bay, New Zealand.
"Terry didn't want to buy into an existing vineyard, rather he wanted to select bare land, an untouched site to ensure a focus on quality from the very beginning. Their search for a winery began traditionally enough, in France and America then spreading to Australia. An opportunity then brought Terry to the edge of the world – to New Zealand – a land of mountains, fire, and ice. Terry Peabody was introduced to noted kiwi viticulturist Steve Smith, and together they sought out the best sites in this relatively young country with the ambition of being recognised as one of New Zealand’s iconic wine producers. They chose unique parcels of land and planted vineyards that would produce wines that were a pure expression of their place," reads the website of the winery.
Craggy Range is an award-winning winery that has been recognized and appreciated multiple times. The World's Best Vineyards named Craggy Range the Best Vineyard in Australia and placed it on the 11th spot in their 2021 Top 100 list. The Wine Spectator felicitated them with the Critics' Choice Award for Producing one of the World's Greatest Wines.
"If I was any of my wines I'd have to be Le Sol Syrah. It shows great character and should age a long time--and I want a live a long time. It has incredible consistency. Our Bordeaux blends can be aged for 40 year or more," Peabody said. "There are no plans for retirement for me. I'd get tired of sitting around. I enjoy achieving, and any business person who has been successful feels that way. It's not all monetary, although there is achievement in that too," Peabody told Forbes back in 2014.