Do you believe Barack Obama will show support towards the GLBT community?

Sydney's first female billionaire was too busy with housework yesterday to notice the frenzied share market grab pushing her personal fortune beyond $1.25 billion.

"How much are they?" Zimbabwean born Judith Neilson asked when The Daily Telegraph rang to talk about the surging share price of Platinum Asset Management.

The funds manager, which she owns with her husband, listed on the stock exchange yesterday at a 70 per cent premium to the $5-a-share price lucky investors paid pre-listing.

When informed her shares - all 140,250,000 of them - had climbed to $8.80 apiece she was astonished.

"What! I don't know what's happened, I haven't listened to the radio," she said. "I'm just doing housework."

The listing of Platinum Asset Management places Mrs Neilson second only to West Australian iron ore baroness Gina Reinhart as Australia's richest woman.

Founded by her husband Kerr Neilson, Platinum Asset Management is a highly regarded funds management.

Mr Neilson sold 20 per cent of the company to investors at $5 per share.

The shares peaked yesterday at $9.11 as institutional investors, who were excluded from the initial share offer, scrambled to buy a piece of the funds manager when it went on the market.

Mr Neilson owns 50 per cent or 280,500,000 shares valued at more than $2.4 billion.

That positions him in the top 10 wealthiest people in Australia.

But Mrs Neilson said no champagne corks had been popped.

Describing Mr Neilson as "a wonderful husband" she said he walked across the Harbour Bridge from their McMahon's Point home as usual.

She did the housework, and worked on her project.

"I didn't think anything would happen," she said. "We're ordinary people.

"Kerr drives a car that his daughter reshaped. She sort of reverse parked, rather badly.

But he doesn't need a car because he walks," she said.

Also distracting her from a theoretical windfall of billion-dollar proportions was her White Rabbit art initiative, comprising a proposal to build a gallery and museum dedicated to displays of contemporary Chinese art.

"That's what I've been harassing everybody about today," she said.

"The plans are before council and it will hopefully be open to the public early next year," she said.

Mrs Neilson, who had an Australian grandmother, is an Australian citizen.

She and her husband are regular donors to The Benevolent Society but like to keep a low profile.

She said the photograph of her and her friend Irene Stone was taken at a Women of Achievement function.

"I have a friend who runs the Black and White committee for the Royal Women's Hospital and she always cons us into going," she said.

"We're not women of achievement. We're just rent-a-crowd."