At 91 years old, Pamela Maunsell Wall – known to most as Pammie – has become one of Australia’s more surprising success stories. A former nurse, a devoted philanthropist, a matriarch of generosity, and now, thanks to the meteoric rise of Codan stock, officially one of the nation’s billionaires.
Codan Limited, the Adelaide-based technology company co-founded by Pammie’s late husband Ian Wall and two university mates in 1959, has quietly become a global force in communications, defence, and metal detection.
In 2025, Codan’s share price has nearly doubled, climbing 97 per cent to about $30.29. That surge reflects a perfect storm of favourable forces: soaring gold prices boosting demand for metal detectors, strong performance in communications and defence-oriented segments, and strategic acquisitions broadening their reach. Net profit in FY25 reportedly jumped by more than 25 per cent, putting Codan’s market value around AUD $5.5 billion.
Pammie Wall owns about 19.2 per cent of Codan her stake is now worth roughly $1 billion. Just one year ago, her holdings were valued at about $550 million.
Early Life & the Making of “Pammie”
Pammie’s story begins with humble, grounded roots. She’s the only child of a bank manager who moved around South Australia, and from age 10 she was sent to boarding school.
Her early adult life was characterised by service: she trained and worked as a nurse at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital in the early 1950s. It was around then that she met Ian Wall, an electrical engineering student at the University of Adelaide. They married in 1954, had children, and together began building what would become Codan (first called EILCO).
Though she left nursing to help support the family and business, Pammie was never far from Codan’s heartbeat. She served on its Board for approximately 20 years, deeply connected to both its people and its values.
Generosity that spreads wide
Pammie’s rise in wealth has paralleled a long track record of giving – especially in South Australia’s education, arts, health, and community sectors. She and Ian Wall were known for their behind-the-scenes generosity long before Codan’s recent boom.
Some of her more high profile philanthropic efforts:
A $5 million donation to the University of Adelaide to establish the Ian and Pamela Wall Chair in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, plus additional support for PhD scholarships in research.
A huge gift of $10 million to the Adelaide Festival Centre Foundation, especially earmarked for arts programming — marking one of the largest individual gifts to a performing arts centre in SA, if not Australia.
A record donation to her alma mater, St Peter’s Woodlands (formerly Woodlands Church of England Girls Grammar School), leading to the creation of the Dr Pamela Wall Centre for Sport and Performing Arts.
She has also had a lifetime of steady behind-the-scenes involvement: engaging in committees, making smaller but meaningful donations, supporting children’s causes, health, the arts, heritage and more.
Personal reflections
Despite her wealth, Pammie retains a warmth and approachability that endears her to many. She’ll ask that you call her “Pammie”. She treasures memories of her boarding school days, friendships, her early nursing work, her life with Ian, and their shared mission.
After Ian passed away (he stepped away from the Codan board in 2009 but the family retained their shares) Pammie has continued many of their joint plans and commitments.
She has been recognised formally: in 2007 she was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM). More recently she has become an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO), in recognition of her broader contributions.
What her story tells us
Pammie Wall’s path is striking because it blends humility, steady work, generosity, and patience. She did not seek the limelight. She invested emotionally and financially in what she believed in – her husband, the business, the community – and watched over decades as those seeds grew.
Her story also reflects broader trends: how wealth in Australia is sometimes quietly built, how legacy can be more than dollars and cents, and how philanthropy, when rooted in place and values, can shape cities and institutions.
Pammie Wall may have entered 2025 quietly – but the curve of her life, long-built on compassion, hard work, and understated determination, has turned sharply upward. She is, in many respects, everything a generation of Australians admire: resilient, giving, grounded – and somehow, having become a billionaire, even more human for it.
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