Former Nine CEO Hugh Marks buys in Paddo with partner Alexi Baker
Former Nine Entertainment chief Hugh Marks and partner Alexi Baker look to have cemented their relationship with a little paperwork, in recent weeks settling on the purchase of a $8m terrace in one of Paddington’s finest enclaves.
With soaring Sydney house prices, Margin Call can hardly think of a greater show of devotion.
The couple, whose relationship was made public in late 2020 and prompted Marks’ exit from the media company in the weeks after, were handed the keys to the four-bed, three-bath property in early September.
The expansive home, on what agents described as “undeniably one of the best streets in Paddington”, is built over three levels, includes double living rooms and no fewer than three marble fireplaces, all a stone’s throw from Oxford Street and minutes away from local watering hole The Bellevue.
After linking their super accounts as “Hugbak” earlier this year, a mortgage with the Commonwealth Bank was just the next step, hardly necessary one would think though, given the former Nine chief’s recently revealed $7.9m exit payment almost covers the purchase price on its own.
Accounts for the financial year to June, as announced by Mike Sneesby last month, revealed Marks had scored a substantial package on the way out of the firm, including a $1m cash bonus and termination benefits not limited to a full year of pay plus more than $65,000 a week for the three months he continued as a Nine employee after relegating his executive duties.
It is not far to move for the Darlinghurst-based Baker, formerly Nine’s head of commercial, but signals a significant shift for the 55-year-old Marks, who for a long time now has scattered his property interests north of the bridge.
Most recently, he had been renting a $2450-a-week modern townhouse in Balmoral Slopes, after passing ownership of his marital home in Artarmon to solicitor ex-wife Gayle Peres Da Costa, mother of his four children, in early 2020.
That six-bed bungalow too has recently changed hands, Peres Da Costa reaping an as-yet-unknown sum on the sale which was inked in July but still yet to settle. Marks meanwhile retains an investment apartment in Neutral Bay and just down the main road in Surry Hills.
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Lasting links
While both execs have called it quits at the Peter Costello-chaired Nine, links to the broadcaster have been harder to sever.
In recent months Marks has emerged as an adviser to Craig Tiley and Jayne Hrdlicka at Tennis Australia, subject matter he is well familiar with after negotiating the $300m Australian Open rights deal that saw Nine snag the event from Seven back in 2018.
His consultancy role with TA is said to include negotiating international broadcast deals and revamping the sporting group’s digital properties, though with its recently launched Wildcard Ventures there’s sure to be plenty of developments ahead.
Meanwhile, Baker is coming up to six months with the NRL, broadcast by Nine, as its chief customer and digital officer, said to be a key cog in broadcast discussions there too.
At least their significant holdings in Nine shares, more than two million held by Marks alone, mean they will get a handy dividend boost come the 5.5c per share payout in October, making the new purchase the house that Nine built, and maybe even redecorated too.
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Road to riches
Despite the recent settlement, Hugbak aren’t the only ones calling in the removalists on Paddington’s leafy Windsor Street strip.
Gayle Rivkin, widow of infamous stockbroker and convicted insider trader Rene Rivkin, recently secured $3.35m for her renovated terrace down the road, while investor Roseanne Burkhart is moving in after upstaging the Nine couple with her $9.2m purchase of a renovated terrace-style home just a few doors down.
With cafes aplenty and quick access to Centennial Park, the suburb is proving to be quite the in-demand strip, though the aforementioned have all been blown out of the water by Sydney Airport chief Geoff Culbert. He and wife Emma Ward just in the past week set a new suburb record of $12m on the sale of their roomy terrace, complete with swimming pool, just a few streets over.
We’ve got a feeling the new residents will feel right at home.
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Bouris rakes it in
Mark Bouris’s Yellow Brick Road has hardly been paved with gold, but on last count it looks as if the financier and former Celebrity Apprentice host is still pocketing plenty from the loss-making firm.
The listed home loan group, whose market capitalisation has dropped to just $30m in recent years, on Friday released its latest figures, showing despite its half a million dollar loss for the financial year, the founder still took home more than double that in fees at $1.1m.
Granted, the multi-millionaire’s on-paper wealth, courtesy of his 54 million shares in the group, has taken a beating since the banking royal commission rattled the mortgage broking industry, but with several other ventures including a podcast and the recent publication of his own self-help book, Bouris is hardly short on income streams.
The annual pay packet is part of a consultancy agreement inked between Bouris’s Golden Wealth Holdings, recently rejigged to a maximum fee of $1.125m and a 20 per cent clawback. Under the terms of the deal, the company can claw back as much as $225,000 in case Bouris doesn’t meet his assigned targets, including the effectiveness of promotion of the company through his The Mentor podcast.
Luckily for Bouris, it’s smooth sailing for the year just passed, though podcast listeners alone haven’t been enough to boost its revenues, the group setting out bold goals for the year ahead including an “aggressive push” on marketing and advertising including on mainstream TV.
Whether that means we’ll see him back on Celebrity Apprentice is a matter for Nine, who just so happens to be a shareholder in the group too.
How handy.
INSIDE MARGIN CALL
Mark Bouris still
raking it in
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