Chemist Warehouse billionaires buy up big in Mosman
Billionaire Chemist Warehouse founders Jack Gance and Mario Verrocchi have flown under the radar and swooped on a strategic site in Sydney’s upmarket lower North Shore suburb of Mosman.
With a huge payout fresh in their pockets from their ASX listing, the Chemist Warehouse pair are padding out their already-significant property portfolio.
Mario Verrocchi and Jack Gance celebrate after the listing of Chemist Warehouse.Credit: Eamon Gallagher
In a deal worth $11.8 million, they put their foot on a 507-square-metre site at 886-888 Military Road which was formerly the long-running Brunskills Pharmacy and is currently leased to Harry Hartog Bookseller.
The bookstore is only a few doors away from Chemist Warehouse’s current operation on Military Road, where it is leasing No. 906–908.
Gance and Verrocchi’s purchase positions the pharmacy chain to potentially occupy the new site from August 2029, when the existing five-year lease to Harry Hartog Booksellers expires.
Military Road in Mosman.
Agents from Ray White Commercial Sydney North were behind the deal.
Also in Mosman, another big site with a combination of residential apartments, retail shops, an industrial warehouse, and a veterinary clinic has sold.
The Ronan at 81–83 Avenue Road and 7–11 Canrobert Street found a new owner willing to pay $16.36 million for the property.
The campaign to sell The Ronan generated 149 enquiries from developers, investors, and automotive occupiers, said Lachlan Worthington and Tim Fox from PropertyFox. The complex was ultimately snapped up by a local private investor.
Hot spot
Bustling Newcastle has become the hot spot for property rich listers and philanthropists alike, who are joining an investment conga line heading north.
Dr Jerry Schwartz of Schwartz Family Company, which will transform the Newcastle Post Office into a community hub with retail, hospitality and event spaces.Credit: Janie Barrett
They include billionaires Dr Jerry Schwartz and former banker-turned-art collector Simon Mordant.
Having been dormant for many years, the northern NSW capital is undergoing a resurgence with billions of dollars of capital pouring in as the population swells.
In the past week, the NSW government announced a $1 million heritage grant to help revive Newcastle’s grand old dame, the Newcastle Post Office.
After a protracted ownership history, Schwartz purchased the building in 2019 for $3.5 million through Colliers.
The second $1 million grant will turn Newcastle’s historic post office into Australia’s first Aboriginal medical museum and a community hub.Credit: Alamy Stock Photo
Under the Schwartz Family Company, it will match the government funding dollar for dollar to transform the Newcastle Post Office into a community hub with retail, hospitality and event spaces.
The 1903 Federation-style building designed by Walter Liberty Vernon will include an adaptive reuse to create a miniature 1960s display of Newcastle, and Australia’s first Aboriginal medical museum.
Schwartz said he bought the Newcastle Post Office “because of my deep connections to the city and the desire to revitalise an iconic heritage building that means so much to local residents”.
Meanwhile, Mordant, who made his mark as an investment banker on high-profile mergers and acquisitions and now lives in Italy with his wife Catriona, will pass on 25 works from the couple’s private collection to the Newcastle Art Gallery when it reopens in September after an extensive expansion.
The donation includes works on paper by Ngarrindjeri artist Ian Abdulla, a collage of digital print and oil by John Young and sculptures by Novocastrian artist Jamie North.
The Duke changes hands
Pub baron John Azar has extended his footprint in the booming sector, paying $25 million for the popular Duke of Dural pub in Sydney’s west.
The pub was sold by Momento Hospitality, which is owned and operated by the Colosimo family, who built the Duke from the ground up during the global pandemic and opened it in November 2020.
Pub baron John Azar has purchased the popular Duke of Dural.Credit: Handout image
Momento will use the cash to focus on its other assets including the newly opened Oran Park Hotel.
Sitting on 2700 square metres within the Dural Town Centre in The Hills district, the Duke pub generates more than $150,000 in weekly sales across food, beverage, and pokie machines.
Azar’s stable includes the Hotel Coronation, Keg & Brew Hotel in Surry Hills, and the Edinburgh Castle Hotel. He recently sold the Union Hotel in North Sydney to fellow pub investor Ashton Waugh. JLL Hotels’ Ben McDonald and John Musca managed the Dural deal.
Sheds sell
Stockland has struck a deal to sell four institutional-grade logistics sheds in two of Australia’s most tightly held industrial markets to Cadence Property Group for $170.5 million.
The portfolio in Melbourne and Sydney has a total site area of about 159,000 sq m and lease space of about 78,000 sq m.
Colliers team of Gavin Bishop, Sean Thomson, Trent Gallagher, Michael Crombie and Daniel Telling, in conjunction with the JLL team of Ben Hegerty, Joel Scully and Jack Kelliher, advised on the deal.
Contact carolynannecummins@gmail.com
The Market Recap newsletter is a wrap of the day’s trading. Get it each weekday afternoon.