Chinese-born director buys Australia’s most expensive penthouse

Chinese-born company director Yan Zhang paid $141.55m for Australia’s most expensive penthouse overlooking Sydney Harbour at Barangaroo.

The One Sydney Harbour penthouse, designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop, sits adjacent the Crown penthouse on the Sydney skyline.

With no registered mortgage required, Chinese-born company director Yan Zhang paid $141.55m on Thursday for Australia’s most expensive penthouse overlooking Sydney Harbour at Barangaroo.

Zhang now owns the top three floors of the One Sydney Harbour development, ending some of the mystery since its off-the-plan exchange in 2019 by Lendlease.

The strata fees for the 1980sq m holding will be sky-high because the two-level penthouse has 4794 of the 100,000 unit entitlements and the secondary apartment has 2109.

The Sell’s quick back-of-an envelope calculation puts the combined quarterly strata at a staggering $107,000 given the building’s $6.2m annual levies.

Little is known about 37-year-old Zhang, who recently set up shelf company Yry Family Pty Ltd, which gives its address as the 88/88 Barangaroo Ave penthouse.

Zhang directs only one other company, Zicheng Australia, which was set up in 2007 and co-directed with Wei Ling Zhang, 63, who was born in Shanghai, China.

Both have given their address as the 52-floor Pitt St, Century Tower sub-penthouse that they bought mortgage-free for $1.33m in 2004 when Zhang was just 16.

It was a good buy because it had previously sold for $1,443,000 in 1997.

Lendlease will be hoping their One Sydney Harbour prices do not fall back.

In 2019 on its exchange, it was reported the mystery buyer of the three-level penthouse was a local Australian resident from mainland China so there no pesky Foreign Investment Review Board requirements.

Construction of the 89-storey Renzo Piano-designed tower was initially scheduled for a late 2023 completion, with Lendlease registering the slightly-delayed strata plan in February last year.

The highest previously registered purchase had been $38.95m to the Zhong family for the entire 76th floor that settled seamlessly in May last year.

Michael Gregg.

Billionaire investor buys 116ha equestrian ranch

Billionaire investor Michael Gregg has not just bought a pricey slot in the next three The Everest horseraces.

The founding partner of private equity firm Shearwater Capital has also bought Fernleigh Estate, a 116ha equestrian ranch property on the Richmond Lowlands.

The property, which appeared in the opening scene of Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby in 2013, was sold by Peter Higgins and his wife Rebecca for $37.95m. The Ridges Lane holding was initially listed in 2019 with $75m expectations by the Avalon-based Higgins, who was co-founder of Mortgage Choice.

The former dairy farm at the foothills of the Blue Mountains has 1km of river frontage, a 12ha lagoon, two undercover arenas, plus four polo fields, 38 stables and staff lodgings.

Two original barns have been turned into reception venues used as the location of weddings on TV’s Married At First Sight.

It has water-access licences for 507 megalitres annually used by Higgins’s Argosy Agriculture Group for livestock and turfproduction.

Higgins successfully hosted the 2017 World Polo Championship at the property. Set on Ham Common, one of three commons setaside in the Hawkesbury district by Governor King in 1804, the 14 titles with sandy-loamy soils were bought by Gregg’s Mulberry Pastoral.

Gregg heads racing entity Mulberry Racing, which takes its name from the farm of breeder Federico Tesio’s Farm. It had been a mulberry and silk farm before being converted into Dormello Stud.

Gregg set up Mulberry Racing after input from Hawkesbury trainer Brad Widdup.

Originally published as Chinese-born director buys Australia’s most expensive penthouse