Mighty flips
Brief ownership of a home doesn’t mean you can’t make an extra few million dollars on the way through, although it helps if you undertake a lavish renovation in the meantime.
The Federation house was purchased by Toby Abbey in 2021 for $8.5 million and resold this week for $15 million.Credit: Domain
Take Tobias Abbey, a co-founder of blockchain-focused venture capital firm Polybius Capital. In 2021, he purchased a Federation house in Mosman for $8.5 million and, soon enough, splashed more than $1 million on a Harper Lane Design renovation.
Polybius Capital co-founder Toby Abbey couldn’t sell the house last year.Credit: LinkedIn
The five-bedroom house with a pool was then listed last year with hopes of $13 million but never sold. However, it wasn’t completely withdrawn from the market, judging by the fact that it sold this week for $15 million.
The sale was regaled as a bullish result by local agents not just for the premium being paid for well-renovated digs but the 75 per cent jump in value in the three years Abbey owned it.
Abbey is heading up the road to the Federation mansion Stonehenge, which he also bought in 2021 from former Macquarie chairman Peter Warne for $21.5 million.
Meanwhile, the off-market has also served Commonwealth Bank senior executive Chandu Bhindi well. His Longueville home was listed last year with $15 million hopes by Belle Property’s Simon Harrison and Kim Walters, but withdrawn ahead of the November auction.
The Longueville home of CBA’s Chandu Bhindi was listed last year for $15 million, but never sold.Credit: Domain
This week it appeared to have sold, although the Belle website doesn’t reveal if he scored his hoped-for price. We’ll leave it to the street rumourmongers who put the result about $15 million. Not bad given the house last traded for $3.11 million in 2006 when sold by corporate adviser Geoff Hilton.
Mining your mates
Coal mining magnate Tony Haggarty and fellow mining boss Rick Chadwick go way back. They forged ties in the 1980s when Haggarty was reporting to his then BP Coal boss Chadwick, they made a fortune in the 1990s when the Gloucester coal deposits mine was sold, and again in 2006 when their Excel Coal was acquired by US coal giant Peabody Energy for $1.8 billion.
So when Haggarty heard Chadwick might be selling his Kurraba Point waterfront apartment, he stepped in to buy it direct.
Tony Haggarty and his wife Karen have paid $8.8 million cash for an apartment on Kurraba Point.Credit:
The sale is far from the most lucrative deal by the mining bigwigs, but it’s also easy to see why Haggarty and his wife Karen didn’t need a mortgage to settle on the $8.8 million pad.
Corporate interests linked to Chadwick and his wife Gwenda had purchased the apartment in the redeveloped Wallaringa Mansions 20 years ago for $5 million.
Still with Kurraba Point’s corporate heavy hitters, former Boral chief executive Rod Pearse and his wife Merryn look like they are planning a downsize from their waterfront house next door to Wallaringa Mansions.
Rod and Merryn Pearse have paid about $13.5 million for an apartment in the boutique Watermarque block on Mosman Bay.Credit: Domain
Pearse, who was Boral’s chief for 10 years before he stepped down in 2009, is rumoured to have paid $13.5 million for an apartment in Mosman’s Watermarque block.
Rod Pearse stepped down as chief executive of Boral in 2009.Credit: Rob Homer
Diana and Michael Briggs, co-founder of private equity outfit Anchorage Capital Partners, had listed their pad in the Allen Jack + Cottier-designed block in early May with The Agency’s Claudia Portale.
The home had set an apartment record for Mosman when it last traded in 2014 for $7.7 million. An apartment record was later reset at $10.22 million in 2018 when RAMS Home Loan founder John Kinghorn bought downstairs for $10.22 million, and again in 2022 when Vittoria Coffee’s former part owner Clelia Cantarella sold in the same block for $14.1 million to gold mining boss Craig Williams.