Gold Coast development: How Robert Hsu beat Bob Ell and Harry Triguboff to $45m Voyager sale

A Taiwanese bubble-wrap king has been revealed as the man behind the $45m sale of the Voyager timeshare resort. This his how he beat out developer royalty Bob Ell and Harry Triguboff.

ROBERT Hsu, a Taiwanese bubble-wrap king with a penchant for Broadbeach, and his Polycell group have popped up as the $45 million ‘under wraps’ buyers of the Voyager timeshare resort.

Their money came out on top in what was an intense battle to secure the plum Voyager site, which looks across Old Burleigh Rd and parkland to the beach.

It was a battle that one observer says involved ‘every man and his dog’ in the property development game.

Names that had a sniff at the Voyager apparently included the likes of billionaires Harry Triguboff and Bob Ell.

The Voyager timeshare building

Some of the early interest was around the $20 million to $30 million market but the offers soon escalated.

One source says that at the end of the day there were multiple buyers willing to pay $40 million, and more than one at $45 million.

It’s likely that the terms offered by the Hsu camp – they apparently included settlement in 90 days – won the day.

A somewhat bizarre twist to the deal was that the actual price was $45,001,680.

Maybe the extra $1680 was enough to top all other offers or perhaps 1680 is a lucky number for Robert ‘Ching-Chin’ Hsu.

Bob Ell

The price being paid represents a more-than-meaty $21,739 a square metre – more than some of the developers of luxury absolute beachfront towers have paid for their sites in the last two years.

There have been intense efforts since the sale to keep the name of the Voyager buyer under wraps, with the team behind the sale, Kollosche Commercial’s Adam and Tony Grbcic, very tight-lipped.

The Voyager deal means that the Hsu team has spent $81 million over the past year on Broadbeach property.

Robert, who founded Polycell International in Taiwan in the 1970s, and his property arm plan a 170-apartment tower on a $12.15 million site fronting Britannia Ave and Surf Pde.

Harry Triguboff.

Polycell spent $22.5 million in January buying the 16 Queensland Ave property, one which six years earlier sold for $11.86 million.

Several months ago the group spent $1.45 million buying a street-front title in the adjoining Sonata building

The former restaurant space, sold by former city councillor Eddy Sarroff, might well be intended as a Polycell sales office.

Meanwhile, there has been no word on plans, or any redevelopment time frame, for the Voyager, which is on the southern side of the Oasis shopping centre.

The 62-unit building’s immediate future appears to be revolve around holiday or rental letting.

Its sale is the climax of moves to market the 15-level tower and its 2070 sqm site that first started in 2016.

The Voyager timeshare building

Those moves culminated with trustees being appointed in May to handle the sale on behalf of the owners of the building’s 3000 or so timeshare periods.

Voyager was built in 1983 by Melbourne barrister Harry Schmelling with the initial aim of providing bachelor pads.

He became aware of timeshare, made a trip to the US to look at the industry there, and returned to Australia to change course with Voyager.

The sale of Voyager represents dilution No. 4 for the Gold Coast timeshare industry.

In the past seven years Surfers properties Tiki Village and Surfers Royale have sold and more recently, Sandy Point at Labrador has moved into a Sydney family’s hands.

Meanwhile, many of the owners in the eastern tower at the adjoining Oracle building have good reason to feel uneasy over the future of their views when Voyager eventually goes.

They could be facing a double whammy – a view-blocking tower called Class is underway on the northern boundary of Voyager, on the corner of Charles Ave.

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