Wallaby-turned-financier Jason Little buys $23m Bondi Beach ‘shell’

Goodman Australia chief and former Wallaby Jason Little and his wife Bridget are set to stake a claim on Bondi Beach’s high-end apartment market having purchased a $23 million penthouse atop the Hall & Campbell development.

For their money is a gutted shell that is a consolidation of apartments spread across the top two levels of the Allen Linz and Eduard Litver development overlooking the beach with parking for two cars and a downstairs apartment thrown in.

The penthouse atop the Hall & Campbell development at Bondi Beach sold for $23 million as a gutted shell.Credit: Artist’s impression

But that’s all they get. Even at a stonking $105,000 per square metre, the penthouse is yet to score the multimillion dollar fitout that’s expected before it’s complete.

And while the sale price hasn’t topped the $32 million record set by billionaire Will Vicars for his consolidation of three penthouses in the Bondi Pacific next door, the price has set a local high for a per-square-metre rate.

Goodman Australia chief executive Jason Little is swapping Manly for Bondi Beach.Credit: Louie Douvis

Little, who played for the Wallabies in three World Cups in the 1990s, and his wife Bridget are coming from Manly where this week Bridget listed their designer home for $15 million to $16.5 million ahead of a July 19 auction through The Agency’s Jake Rowe.

The Littles purchased the Manly property on a Catholic Church leasehold as land in 2014, the same year they sold their former Mosman home for $5.6 million.

Burley Katon Halliday were commissioned to design the contemporary, timber-clad residence in Manly’s Spring Cove estate overlooking the harbour and complete with a pool and Dangar Barin Smith landscaping.

The Burley Katon Halliday-designed residence in Spring Cove, Manly, is being sold by Bridget Little.Credit: Domain

Still with Manly’s high-end deals, the Fairy Bower rumour mill has been in overdrive in recent weeks over who was behind the recent, record-setting $35 million house set above Shelly Beach.

Wes Maas ranked on this year’s AFR Rich List 200 with an estimated wealth of $814 million.Credit: Nic Walker

Among the plethora of names being offered up is that of former South Sydney Rabbitohs player-turned-rich lister Wes Maas, the chief of ASX-listed construction company Maas Group, and whose wife Emma already owns a house on a Catholic Church leasehold on the high side of the street.

Alas, for Rabbitohs fans, Maas’s office denies the purchase, stating: “Wes Maas has not purchased a property.” That’s that then.

In the absence of any clues from Clarke & Humel’s Michael Clarke and Cherie Humel, we will leave it to settlement records to reveal the buyer who recalibrated local high-end housing values, and what sort of job it takes to buy one of the best houses on the northern beaches.

Allco Finance reunion

The for-sale signage and online marketing has been quietly taken down on the Tamarama home of events producer Antony Spanbrook and his medico partner Chris Yeo in what looks like a hush-hush sale.

The Tamarama house built by Rubicon founder Gordon Fell has sold close to its $20 million asking price.Credit: Domain

The Agency’s Ben Collier and Sotheby’s James Ball had a $20 million guide last year when it was listed, and had steadfastly stuck to the asking price, suggesting a sale price about that level.

While the agents are hoping to maintain much secrecy about it all, a caveat not only confirms it has sold but reveals it was bought by London-based shoppers Geraldine Cooper-Brown and Neil Brown.

If Brown sounds familiar to finance types that’s because he was once head of global capital market group at investment giant Allco Finance, which at the time he was hired in 2007 boasted $4.3 billion in assets.

Neil Brown is head of capital formation at London-based renewable energy company Low Carbon.Credit: LinkedIn

Of course, things went awry a year later thanks to the global financial crisis when Allco collapsed with debts of $1.1 billion, making it one of the country’s highest-profile corporate collapses.

There’s no mention of that ancient history on Brown’s latest corporate bio. Instead, the former private equity operative and co-founder of Minerva Capital Advisors (where he once hired his late boss David Coe) is now head of capital formation at London-based, global renewable energy company Low Carbon.

And when Brown eventually settles on his newly purchased Tamarama house he will also be the owner of a Tony Masters Design residence that was, coincidentally, built by Gordon Fell, of Rubicon fame.

For those who missed the legion of headlines about Allco and Rubicon, the latter was a property trust empire founded by Fell and sold in a debt-laden state to Allco in 2007, less than a year before Allco collapsed.

Fell and his wife Pip had already sold their Tamarama digs by then, having pocketed $6.4 million in 2004, and a few years later purchased Point Piper’s Routala trophy home for $28.75 million. They sold Routala in 2018 for $51 million.

Kiwi cash buyers

The Darling Point duplex owned by Julia Cooney sold for $14 million to the Huljich family.Credit: Domain

Michael and Svetlana Huljich, of one of New Zealand’s richest families, have snapped up a whole duplex in Darling Point, paying $14 million – no mortgage required.

The three-level property was sold just days after it was listed for $13 million by Highland Property’s Bill Malouf on behalf of Julia Cooney, daughter of yachtie and renewable energy boss Jim Cooney.

Michael Huljich is a member of one of New Zealand’s wealthiest families.Credit:

Cooney jnr was aged just 20 when she purchased it as her first Sydney home in 2018 for $8.67 million, also paying cash at the time.

The Huljich family have long appeared on the title of Sydney’s high-end housing market. Michael’s brother Christopher owned waterfront land in Point Piper that he sold to “Aussie John” Symond in 1999 for almost $11 million. The site now hosts Symond’s grand mansion that was listed for sale last month for more than $200 million.

Christopher’s son Jason Huljich is another Darling Point local. He purchased the Federation house Callooa for $22.65 million in 2020.