For the man who has everything

Illustration: Rod Clement

Trucking billionaire Lindsay Fox has bought a new 57.7m ­superyacht — and it’s a beauty, as to be expected of something that cost more than $100 million.

Margin Call can reveal Fox is the owner of the first vessel in Dutch luxe boating manufacturer Amels’ new “188” range of superyachts, one of the most sought-after shiny toys for the international super-rich.

This is a seriously high-end billionaire flotation device.

The 81-year-old Fox’s trucking, logistics, airport and property empire was last valued at $3.56 billion on the Stensholt Index, so it’s not as if the Melburnian can’t afford it.

Margin Call has been told the billionaire is likely to have paid the Dutch well over $100m for the vessel he named Volpini 2 (“volpino” is Italian for little fox).

Superyachts — those longer than 24m, that have no more than 12 passengers and have a private crew — cost at least $2m a metre to build.

They can cost considerably more, as we believe is the case for Fox’s new Tim Heywood-­designed possession.

The interiors are customised by Reymond Langton, the ship includes a 30sq m beach club, a gym and well as an 80sq m master suite on the main deck for Lindsay and wife Paula.

We gather the new boat was bought after the 2017 European summer, a few months after Lindsay turned 80.

That was the summer after Fox’s legendary “Love Boat” conception party, which featured his billionaire bestie Solomon Lew and fellow billionaires Andrew Forrest and Gina Rinehart.

We gather the new vessel has been out for sea trials and is now ready and waiting for Fox, as soon as he flees the miserable Melbourne winter.

It’s not clear what will become of its predecessor, the 47.5m Volpini (last spotted in the Mediterranean).

Could it be another thing for Lindsay’s three sons Peter, Andrew and David to discuss in the still-to-be-completed division of the family fortune?

In the interim

Lindsay Fox isn’t the only Australian billionaire with a new floating toy.

Crown rich-lister James Packer has just taken possession of his new — but temporary — superyacht, which he has named EJI after his three children Emmanuelle, Jackson and Indigo.

As you read this, Packer is showing the new Marshall Islands-registered vessel to his girlfriend Kylie Lim in St Tropez, the billionaire capital of the French Riviera.

The new 55m boat has come out of Amels, the same Dutch boat shed that made Fox’s Volpini 2.

It has been a favourite ship builder for Australia’s billionaires since 2003 when it made Frank Lowy’s 74m Ilona (last spotted in Corfu — just the spot for the Westfield legend to decompress after a career-defining $32bn takeover).

For most people, a superyacht is an impossibly remote object.

But for Packer, the new boat is a “tide-me-over”.

His sister Gretel Packer now has possession of the Crown billionaire’s previous boat, Arctic P.

So Margin Call understands the billionaire ordered the vessel from the efficient Dutch once it became apparent his long-running Italian superyacht was not going to arrive in time for this European summer.

So has Packer rented the newbie?

Of course not.

He bought it.

As in Fox’s case, the $100 million-plus acquisition coincides with a milestone billionaire birthday — in Packer’s case, his 50th, which he celebrated last September.

While Packer, his mate Ben Tilley and girlfriend Lim test out the new boat in France, over in neighbouring Italy work continues on Packer’s longer- term and more permanent project.

While the 107 superyacht has been under construction by Italian ship builder Benetti for almost four years, it is still a year away from completion, as reported over the weekend.

That one is also named after his three children. It’s called IJE. And it’s price tag is well over $200m.

What’s the point of having a $5.25bn fortune if you never spend it?

Get this party started

After a year of warfare, peace has broken out in President Michael Kroger’s Victorian Liberal division.

It seems the party’s donation of more than $2m to the country’s richest lawyers has everyone feeling warm and fuzzy.

Charles Goode’s $70m Cormack Foundation began the bonhomie yesterday morning, announcing it was turning on the donation taps to help Liberal state leader Matthew Guy in his November showdown with Labor Premier Dan Andrews.

To get around Cormack’s threat that it would not donate to the Victorian Liberals so long as President Kroger had not implemented the recommendations of Ian Carson’s auditor PPB Advisory, Cormack’s money will apparently flow directly to Guy.

That seems an imperfect solution by Goode and the gang to a situation that grew out of concerns of governance.

By the afternoon, Kroger had welcomed the Cormack decision. He also noted the final PPB-recommended change would be implemented within a month.

That will see Kroger as president stand down from his dual role as the chair of the finance committee.

Once that happens, will Cormack redirect the money to Kroger’s Liberal head office instead of the new Guy vehicle?

Only when there has been “independent verification” of the governance changes, says Cormack. Kroger’s team points out the Liberals had allowed that verification last year.

Margin Call senses lots of tedious back-and-forth of this arcane issue.

The bigger squabble will be over how much Cormack pays after it’s more than 18-month funding freeze.

Some accountants in the Liberals’ head office reckon that about $5.5 million is outstanding.

Margin Call understands before the dysfunction, Cormack paid the Liberals about $1.77m a year in administration costs.

We gather over the last two years, only $500,000 has been paid.

That’s left a more than $3m shortfall.

Plus, in an election year like this, Cormack traditionally kicks in additional campaign money. We understand Denis Napthine’s failed 2014 campaign received about a $2.4m top up from Cormack.

The amount donated will depend in part on the performance of Cormack’s circa $70m fund, which — worryingly for the Liberals — is overweight Australian banks.

Plus there are Cormack’s more than $1m legal fees to pay.

Rich lawyers. Poor Guy.