Roy Medich buys historic Berrima farm from tech investor for $50m

When little-known tech investor Peter Crown emerged as the rumoured $100 million buyer of a Southern Highlands land aggregation from Hume Coal in November, it not only made him one of the district’s largest landholders, it shocked property watchers, given the bullish price it put on local values.

Less than six months later, Crown has stunned the well-heeled farming set again by flipping less than half the Hume Coal portfolio for almost $50 million to prominent father-and-son property investors Roy and Anthony Medich.

The historic Mereworth residence at Berrima, with its distinctive mansard roof, was designed by architect John Amory.Credit:

The high-end property play was revealed through a detailed dissection of related title records, which shows the Medich family’s corporate interests took possession of about 497 hectares of Berrima farmland earlier this week for $49.687 million.

That sizeable chunk of Hume Coal’s 1300-hectare aggregation makes up the historic Mereworth property, but not an additional nine-hectare parcel across the road that instead settled for $3 million to the Simpson family’s Wylarah Pastoral Company at Crookwell.

Rich Lister Roy Medich has expanded his Southern Highlands property interests by almost $50 million.Credit:

A week before the Medich and Simpson families settled on their respective parts of the $52.687 million deal, the same land was transferred from Hume Coal’s ownership to Crown for just $33 million, translating to a $19.492 million jump in value in seven days.

The Medich’s newly acquired Mereworth property makes up about 40 per cent of Hume Coal’s 1300 hectare aggregation, but is widely regarded as the best-quality land in the deal and lays claim to the historic French provincial-style residence Mereworth, designed by architect John Amory and featuring a distinctive mansard roof.

From 1963, Mereworth was owned by the Oxley family, of Bushells Tea fame, until 2014, when it sold for $11.1 million to a mystery buyer who was later revealed to be Hume Coal.

Crown’s windfall on Mereworth was in large part possible because Hume Coal wanted the proposed mining site sold in one line, deterring buyers who had an interest in only smaller subdivisions.

It was planned to be a quick exit from the area by Hume Coal’s parent company, Korean steel giant POSCO, coming within weeks of a decision by the state’s Independent Planning Commission to reject a proposed $533 million underground coal mine.

Tech investor Peter Crown has resold a large portion of the Hume Coal aggregation for about $50 million.Credit: LinkedIn

The controversial mine had long polarised the Southern Highlands community before it was rejected in August on the grounds that the impacts “cannot be reasonably and satisfactorily avoided, mitigated and managed”.

It remains unknown how much Hume Coal pocketed for the total proposed mine site – which stretches from Berrima to Moss Vale, Medway and Sutton Forest – because settlement records on the remaining 800 hectares are yet to be formalised. But it was widely tipped to have sold for close to $100 million, including 1970 megalitres worth of water licences.

Ray White’s Kim Watts was gagged by confidentiality orders from commenting on the sale, but local agent Angus Campbell-Jones said the initial $100 million sale was “a great vote of confidence in the Southern Highlands market”.

“It was a bold and brave move by Peter Crown, but it’s certainly paid off for him now,” Campbell-Jones said.

Crown is a Burradoo local and best known as a co-founder of the social impact start-up Ouno, and for his private investment company Resilient Investment, which targets emerging technologies.

Rich Lister Roy Medich and his brother, convicted murderer Ron Medich, are the sons of film producer and investor Peter Medich, who with his brother Lubo was regarded in the 1970s as a business pioneer in Sydney’s south-western suburbs.

The Medich Family Office is based in the Bondi Beach building purchased from James Packer for $29 million in 2018, and the family’s investments include Hunter Valley agriculture interests, pubs and the abandoned Tooth & Co brewery site in the Southern Highlands known as Mittagong Maltings.

Given no comment from the Medich family, it remains unknown what their plans are for Mereworth.