But that would be wrong. Jerry Ren says he is worth much more than that.
The bright-eyed Territorian, originally from China, says he owns a quarter of all the NT's onshore oil and gas exploration licences, a Roper River iron ore mine, a new titanium mine and one of the world's biggest aluminium foil container companies, Nicholl Food Packaging.
And that's just for starters.
The unassuming Darwin resident has amassed a business empire that would make the average punter drop their pint glass in shock, and he's not yet 50.
Mr Ren was born Xiao Feng Ren in Benxi, a city in China's northeastern metallurgical province of Liaoning, famous for iron and steel production. Related Coverage
It was 1963 and Chairman Mao had only recently finished his Great Leap Forward, a disastrous policy of farming collectives and forced industrialisation that resulted in more than 30 million deaths.
Mr Ren's father Yu Shan was a senior engineer at a steel smelter while his mother Chun Hua stayed home to look after Jerry, his two brothers and one sister.
The family was poor as his father had one of the lowest salaries in the steel plant.
"Intellectual people were seen as not really working," he said.
"They got the lowest wage. In the steel plant, if you were in front of the furnace you got a high salary.
"But engineers got the same salary from the day you graduate for 21 years."
Jerry was a bright child, always top of his class.
But he used to run away from school and play truant.
"I was only there half the time," he said.
"Everything (study) was easy somehow."
He always wanted to be an engineer, like his father, but never got the chance.
On graduating from a science degree at Tianjin University, he was given a job by the state.
"They sent me to the export department of the China Metallurgical Import and Export Corporation," he said.
"I was assigned in charge of small metals: titanium, tungsten and molybdenum."
"That's where I got into ilmenite," he said.
He did not know it then but it was that move that set him up to be quite possibly the Territory's richest man.
At a time when China was still a communist society closed to the capitalist West, Mr Ren worked in exports and was thus one of the few to understand international trade.
"Most people had no idea how to do international business as it was just beginning in China," he said.
The Chinese State-owned company split into two divisions: Sinosteel and the Metallurgical Construction of China (MCC).
Mr Ren worked for them until 1989 when he quit, just as China opened its economy to the rest of the world. That act of walking away made him the hottest property in international trade in both the US and Europe.
"Most people don't quit that job as it's one of the best in China,'' he said.
Mr Ren went to the US and was highly sought after as a consultant in the steel industry.
"I was the only one from the Chinese Government in the steel sector,'' he said.
"The steel people all knew me. The steel industry was in big distress with bankruptcies, and mergers and acquisitions. They were all wanting to know what was happening in China so they all talked to me."
Mr Ren learnt a lot about investing and began starting companies.
He operated one of the largest shipping firms in China, Minerals Transportation Ltd, and a giant minerals trading house, Mineral Resources (China) Company Ltd.
The journey has not been all smooth sailing as the minerals company was later embroiled in a Hong Kong High Court case over an unpaid loan to the Bank of India.
Mr Ren said he sold a Chinese graphite mine in 2009 but the new owner couldn't pay, which caused the trouble.
According to the High Court ruling, the bank obtained a final judgment against the company for about $1.8 million plus interest and costs last year.
In 2000, Mr Ren left the US and went to Germany, setting up more companies and selling them, then taking over others, including the minerals trading team of ThyssenKrupp.
He has found time for a social life and has been married twice.
He has a 19-year-old son, Lei, from his first wife, a property developer in China.
He also has two young sons, Josh and Jiarun, with his second wife, Aody.
Mr Ren said it was love at first sight when he met her. He was in an art gallery trying to buy an oil painting and she was taking care of the shop for five minutes for the owner.
"I talked to her and found she was a uni student," Mr Ren said.
"She studied finance and I could see she was intelligent."
In the UK he bought the ilmenite project on the Roper River and moved to the Territory in 2007.
He now owns the new ilmenite mine, opening this month, which will produce the light metal titanium.
He also owns 80 per cent of Sherwin Iron, which has a large iron ore project in the area.
His political savvy is evident.
He has enlisted CLP heavyweight Barry Coulter as Sherwin's chairman.
Mr Coulter is a former deputy chief minister and adviser to the NT Government's Renewal Management Board, which cannot hurt the company's chances of success.
His corporate empire is partly structured through Singapore-based company Citizen International Investments, which has subsidiaries that own assets, but is soon to be restructured.
Mr Ren spent years living in Fannie Bay and considers the Territory his home.
But in 2011 he moved to Sydney because he said there was only one good private school in the Territory, and he couldn't get his sons in.
"In my heart, I am a Territorian always,'' he said.
"After travelling all over the world, the NT is the best place and the place I call home."
Mr Ren is moving back next month when his young sons go to boarding school in Switzerland.
SHD Price at posting:
8.2¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
