The protracted sale of the $95m Edgewater property is (mostly) finalised

The Edgewater property at Point Piper is ‘three quarters paid for’ — kinda, sorta bringing to a close an enduring mystery about who really owns the property.

Edgewater at Point Piper.

The $95m Edgewater property at Point Piper is “three quarters paid for” Margin Call hears, kinda, sorta bringing to a close an enduring mystery about who really owns the property.

Edgewater, on Wolseley Rd, Point Piper, has a literally entertaining history, built by show business entrepreneur Michael Edgley in the early 1980s, and then sold to the Katies fashion empire founders - the late Joseph Brender and the late Sam Moss.

The property was converted to a duplex after they purchased it and the fashion magnates lived as neighbours for decades, with Mr Brender passing away just this past January aged 92.

Predating that by just more than three years, news broke in late 2020 that “John” Changjin Li had bought the Edgewater properties for $95m, however with an extended two year settlement period.

Mr Li is not well known in Australia, but is thought to have made his fortune in gold mining enterprises in Indonesia.

As well as the Edgewater purchase, carried out through an entity named One Point Piper, Mr Li also snapped up homes in Vaucluse for $10.9m and Bayview for $15m, through entities including Vaucluse 29, Bayview 66 and One Lake Macquarie.

Property records show that the latter owned two properties on Lake Macquarie which were almost adjacent with Mr Li snapping up 7 Foreshore St, Eraring, for $6m in 2020, as well as the property three doors down for $3.1m in late 2021.

Not a bad neighbourhood.

Vaucluse 29 appears to have picked up a four-bedroom apartment a hop, skip and a jump down Point Piper’s Wolseley Rd from Edgewater for $8.08m. However, property records indicate that it hit the market again in December, 2022.

All of these companies were placed in liquidation in late 2022 however, to be joined just recently by Mr Li’s company One Mission Beach, which was placed in administration just in recent days.

The Mission Beach company does not appear to own any property, and an administrator out of Cairns, who has not responded to requests for comment, has been appointed.

Meanwhile, liquidation reports on the other companies dropped mid-last year, indicating a tangled web, with Mr Li’s first ex-wife (Changren Cheng) extending tens of millions of dollars in loan funds for property purposes, while his second ex wife (Meihong Yang) appointed the liquidators following a win in the courts.

A court judgment says that Ms Yang and Mr Li “married and incorporated several companies which in turn acquired several properties’’.

But there was a “disagreement between herself and Mr Li, in late June or early July 2022, in respect of the terms of which a further property would be purchased, and to her having then discovered that Mr Li had moved into one of the properties that had been purchased and was now residing there with his former wife.

“Ms Yang refers to the fact that she then moved to her former residence reflecting an apparent breakdown in her and Mr Li’s marital relationship.’’

Sources have told Margin Call that Mr Li is now living in one of the Edgewater apartments with Ms Cheng, having reconciled.

The first Edgewater title has indeed been transferred into the name of Mr Li’s company Point Piper One, while the second remains registered to the Brender family.

Sources say the second Edgewater title has been “half paid for”, with Mr Li agreeing to let the ailing Mr Brender stay in the property.

While this would put the price paid for Edgewater up at about the $70m mark to date, Mr Li’s other companies faced solvency issues when they were liquidated, according to the liquidator’s report.

The view from Edgewater at Point Piper.

Mr Li did not co-operate with liquidator Mark Roufeil, of PKF, according to the report lodged in relation to the three companies in liquidation.

That report says Ms Yang was the only shareholder of all three companies, but that they were controlled by Mr Li.

“Vaucluse and Bayview been involved with purchasing, renovating and subsequent sales of prestige real properties in and around Sydney NSW and made substantial capital gains,’’ the report says.

“The companies appear to have been wholly managed and controlled by Mr Li.

“To our knowledge, the companies have not prepared financial statements or lodged tax

returns with the Australian Taxation Office since their incorporation.

“The companies appear to be financially reliant on mortgage finance, provided by related

parties, to make their purchases and to fund development and holding costs.’’

Those related parties were Ms Cheng and her company, Athena Rose Capital, which, the report says, extended a line of credit to Mr Li of about $50m across the various properties.

The liquidators also believe the ATO was a significant creditor “however the capital gains tax payable remains unquantified at this time due to a lack of accounting’’.

The amount estimated to be owed to the ATO is about $6m.

One of the transactions carried out by the Vaucluse company would have alone generated up to $4.6m in CGT, the report says, with the company buying 29 Carrara Rd, Vaucluse for $10.9m in August 2020 and selling it for $26.3m in June 2022.

“The surplus of $15,390,000 was wholly disbursed and Vaucluse appears to have been left

without funds to pay any tax that is likely payable on the profit from the sale or any working

capital to pay holding costs on the Wolseley Road Property,’’ the report says.

Another property transaction, for 66 Minkara Rd, Bayview, through the Bayview 66 vehicle, involved a purchase in February 2021 for $11.5m and a sale in December that year for $15m.

Court documents state that Ms Cheng, who had access to “tens of millions of dollars of my funds available to invest’’, agreed to let Mr Li advise her on investments within Australia, but also that she was unaware he had remarried.

“Ms Cheng has given evidence that she was not aware at that time that Ms Yang was Mr Li’s wife, and she had understood that their relationship was a business relationship only,’’ a court judgment says.

In terms of where it stands now, settlement on the second Edgewater title is rumoured to be happening sometime this year.

We’ll keep you posted.

Mr Li could not be contacted.

Originally published as The protracted sale of the $95m Edgewater property is (mostly) finalised