2009.05.03 02:39:40
Super-rich offload prestige mansions
Bridget Carter | May 02, 2009
Article from: The Australian
BRUISED and battered by the global financial crisis, some of Australia’s wealthiest business people are being forced to downgrade, with at least one selling the $20 million home and looking in the $2 million-$3 million price range.
Pesticides multi-millionaire Steven Eckowitz, who featured on the BRW Rich List with a fortune of at least $300 million in 2007, has been shopping for houses worth about $3 million in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, according to agents.
Mr Eckowitz has sold a mansion in Wentworth Road, Vaucluse, he bought in the middle of last year for about $20million.
The South African founder of hedge fund manager Everest Babcock & Brown had poured millions of dollars into listed companies before the downturn. Both he and his son-in-law, Jeremy Reid, invested more than $100million in Everest Babcock & Brown.
The stock’s market capitalisation has dived from $980 million in July 2007 to $15.84 million.
Other investments by Mr Eckowitz included Challenger Financial Services and property fund Challenger Kenedix Japan Trust.
He had previously taken a 0.8per cent stake in the trust. His stake was worth $1.8 million in 2007. But since the middle of 2007, the stock’s market capitalisation has fallen from $226.6million to $43.96 million. Mr Eckowitz did not return calls from The Weekend Australian.
Mr Eckowitz’s downgrading comes as evidence mounts that other high-flyers in the finance arena are feeling the heat from the credit crisis meltdown, as mansions in Sydney’s east take months to sell.
The Singapore-based Australian banker Adrian Fonseca is tipped to be dropping the price of his house in Greycliff Avenue, Vaucluse, after unsuccessful attempts to sell the property for $11 million.
Mr Fonseca bought the eastern suburbs home for $8 million in 2007, according to RP Data.
Meanwhile, property developer Bob Ell has sold the penthouse he created on the second-highest floor of the Harry Seidler-designed Sydney Horizon apartment complex for a rumoured $6.7 million.
He had wanted as much as $15million, with the property on and off the market for three years.
On the other side of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, two parties are finally in negotiations for the Mosman home of Glenn Willis, who headed the Australian arm of Lehmann Brothers after founding Grange Securities.
He has been trying to offload his Mosman pad for some time. The Burran Avenue property was passed in at auction several weeks ago at $10.25 million, after being placed on the market last year for about $15 million.
Late last year, property developer and share market investor John Dalley, who has strong exposure to James Packer and Babcock & Brown-related stocks, received about $18 million for his property on Wunulla Road, Point Piper in Sydney’s east.
The Sydney home was placed on the market for $25 million more than six months ago, but sources say Mr Dalley wanted to “downsize to another home in the eastern suburbs”.
Figures from Residex shows house prices in the country’s prestige suburbs fell in the past quarter. One of the hardest hit was Peppermint Grove in Perth, down 4.39 per cent, followed by Newstead and Newfarm in Queensland, both down more than 4.2 per cent. Hardest hit in NSW were Palm Beach and Clontarf.