In a jaundiced world inured to ever-swelling executive salaries and bonuses, the Macquarie Bank financial whiz and poster boy for self-made millionaires, Ben Brazil has nipped the hand that raised him.

Just as Gen X and Y across Australia implore baby boomer parents to help them buy homes, the 44-year-old debt-investment banker has asked his father to exclude him from sharing in the $300 million-plus family fortune.

Lyn Brazil, a Queensland investor/grazier/farmer, has told The Australian Financial Review that his only son wanted to succeed without using the family fortune. "He said: 'Don't even put me in the will'," the 72-year-old said. "Ben says he doesn't want any of it. He is determined to be his own man."

Easy for some. In fact Ben Brazil is one of Macquarie Bank's best-paid bankers. His $15 million total salary – including a $6.7 million bonus – this year made him Macquarie's third-highest paid executive, up from fourth. He has overseen $33 billion of investments in debt since 2008, generating big profits for the bank but raising complaints from rivals that he is exploiting Macquarie's privileged position as a regulated bank thanks to the added extra of Australian taxpayers underwriting its business – Macquarie has a standing emergency line of credit from the Reserve Bank of Australia and can raise capital as cheaply as 1.9 per cent a year.

Obviously, Ben Brazil is not exactly a self-made man.

His father studied accounting at Queensland University in the 1960s before returning home to help run the family poultry business. Over the years Brazil senior built a multimillion-dollar rural portfolio that included stations and holdings in the Northern Territory and the Darling Downs. But he went way beyond pastoral: he is also a venture capitalist who trousered a cool $33.2 million after presciently investing in the web booking service wotif.com before it was floated. Last year Lyn Brazil made $50 million selling land on Brisbane's southern outskirts to Macquarie. Like a lot of rich people, he gives millions to the charities of his choice.

The son shone early. Completing a fine law degree at the University of Queensland, Ben Brazil was immediately hired by Macquarie, and quickly adopted as a protege by Nicholas Moore, now Macquarie Group chief executive. His fellow bankers nicknamed him "Brains".

He soon came to the attention of those masterful exploiters of clever money men, the Packers. One of his first gigs, at 26, was to interest Kerry Packer into buying a piece of the action to privatise Qantas.

For years, Ben Brazil moved seamlessly between the Packer Empire and Macquarie. James Packer appointed him to the Crown Resorts board in 2009.

The financial press follows his exploits assiduously – he bought a $16 million Sydney Harbour waterfront property in Vaucluse in 2007 – but Ben Brazil has managed to keep a low public profile.

This is despite the fact that his contemporaries rate him one of the country's top three investors – he allegedly achieved a 24 per cent return for his investors.

Despite his son's success Lyn Brazil has no intention of casting his son out without a penny, saying he had set aside money in a family trust for both his children – he has a daughter, Victoria – and his grandchildren.

"There will be provision for them," he said. "Too much money can spoil people. We will ensure that they don't go needy."