Billionaire Canva pair keep it real on property front
The valuation of their tech empire Canva may have surpassed a mind-blowing $19bn this week thanks to a fresh capital raising, but Melanie Perkins and Clifford Obrecht look to be keeping things real when it comes to their Sydney lifestyle.
Well, relatively real, anyway.
The thirty-something billionaire couple have just raised another $93m in return for equity in their less than 10-year-old, Sydney-based graphic design software firm, so that their big stake in Canva alongside supportive venture capital firms means they are now worth even more than their previously estimated $2.5bn combined wealth.
The couple have just listed a modest one-bedder loft apartment that they have owned in a Surry Hills warehouse conversion since 2015.
Chief executive Perkins and chief operating officer Obrecht purchased the funky pad for $667,500 with the assistance of a mortgage with Ross McEwan’s NAB, and are now looking to cash out for more than $800,000 — chump change for a pair worth billions.
The now-married duo bought the inner-city bolthole via their respective private vehicles, Melanie Pty Ltd and Dreamers Holdings Pty Ltd.
The entrepreneurs own another pad in the inner-city suburb, a terrace that they bought in 2017 for $1.5m and went on to renovate, adding a third level and rooftop garden, but still humble digs relative to their billionaire tech contemporaries at Atlassian, Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes, who each now own sprawling multimillion-dollar, historic waterfront mansions on Sydney Harbour.
Hartzer’s leadership star power
Despite stepping back from the world of the big banks, it seems former Westpac boss Brian Hartzer still has plenty of pull when it comes to corporate heavy hitters.
It may come as a surprise to some that the banker recently picked up a pen to jot down his thoughts on leadership in his recently released book, The Leadership Star — A Practical Guide to Building Engagement.
With 12 months of gardening leave and a swift hit to his corporate reputation, what else was the guy to do?
Recall it was Hartzer whose time at the bank was cut short, along with chairman Lindsay Maxsted, after the disastrous handling of the money-laundering scandal in the wake of Kenneth Hayne’s banking royal commission.
Despite that, there were plenty of big names willing to lend their names to Hartzer’s so-called 5 C’s of caring, context, clarity, clearing the way and celebrating. You need only look as far as his book’s back cover.
Seven Group chief Ryan Stokes notes the read “provides many invaluable insights”, while the author’s colleague on the board of the Australian Museum, Kim McKay, describes Hartzer as a “sounding board, sharing his knowledge through the pages of this useful and practical leadership book”.
Former Commonwealth Bank head Sir Ralph Norris adds his commendation to the list, as does Stanford Graduate Business School dean emeritus Bob Joss and CEO adviser Ram Charan, who says “it’s new and it’s fresh”.
Quite the endorsement indeed.
And just like with any new release, Hartzer, who has turned his skills to fintech advising including with Woolies-backed start-up Quantium, has been on the promotion trail to flog his book this week.
Old banking mates have come in handy to secure a friendly one-hour interview on the podcast of Frazis Capital’s Michael Frazis, son of his former consumer banking head, now BOQ boss George Frazis.
On RN Breakfast Thursday also he skirted around pointed questions from host HamishMcDonald on just why he was qualified to write the book in the first place, the host pointing out that just four pages were on the subject of his high-profile role, tucked away in the final pages of the afterword.
The anti-money-launderings problems started well before he did, Hartzer replied, adding: “You learn as much from what doesn’t go right as what does.”
If that is the case, then he would have plenty to learn indeed.
House-hopping
There must be something in the water at Canva HQ that’s making feet itchy.
Co-founder, chief marketing officer and fellow tech billionaire Cameron Adams, 41, has been reworking his residential real estate portfolio, too.
Just a few weeks ago Adams, who hails from Melbourne and before Canva worked for Google, sold his pretty-as-a-picture, neat-as-a-pin Rozelle double-fronted weatherboard home for $2.4m. That follows the businessman’s much more billionaire appropriate pre-Christmas buy of a $5.2m, fully renovated, two-storey home with all the bells and whistles including a pool, gym and harbour bridge views, in the nearby Sydney suburb of Balmain.
Recent days have seen Adams, who is also on the board of ASX-listed Esports Mogul, moving into the new home with his partner Lisa Miller, who is ex-Canva but who with Adams has founded workplace consultancy Team & Work.
Happy house-warming.
Pushing boundaries
Maybe things are not quite as bad as they might seem for first-term member of federal parliament Libby Coker.
The folk at the Australian Electoral Commission have proposed a redrawing of electorates ahead of the next federal election, with Coker’s marginal seat of Corangamite, which she narrowly won off the Liberals’ now Victorian senator Sarah Henderson, set to have its geographic boundary significantly changed.
Coker’s seat is set to become much smaller in terms of area, with a large swath of the Surf Coast to become part of Education Minister Dan Tehan’sWannon.
Corangamite’s name is proposed to be changed to Tucker, in honour of Yorta Yorta woman Margaret Tucker and her work to promote equality for Aboriginal people, with its boundary to stop just beyond Bells Beach.
That’s tricky for Coker, who lives with her family at Aireys Inlet, placing the MP in Tehan’s new patch and with one strike of the AEC’s pen suddenly outside her own electorate.
And in a seat with a margin of just 1.1 per cent, living outside your division can be dangerous.
But Margin Call has discovered that Coker might have had something close to a plan B, being the owner of a second small residence in the Geelong suburb of Newtown, which she purchased for $636,000 in 2017.
Alas, Newtown falls within Richard Marles’ seat of Corio, which the AEC has not proposed any changes to when it comes to boundaries, leaving Coker with two homes that will be located outside of her own electorate.
The AEC has asked for feedback on its proposed changes by April 16, before making final determinations after that.
We shall see.
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