Mike Smith’s mansion up for grabs as banker streamlines

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Retirement sees former ANZ boss Mike Smith streamlining his prestige property portfolio, with the banker putting his Toorak mansion up for sale.

Late last year Smith and his wife Maria purchased former Olympic Committee member Kevan Gosper’s three-bedroom apartment in South Yarra’s botanical gardens precinct, with their five-bedroom Wayne Gillespie-designed Hopetoun Road now on the market.

Smith paid $9.75 million for the pile, which features a tennis court, pool, 1500-bottle wine cellar, underground garage and fully equipped gym, in 2008 and then a year later transferred its ownership to his wife for nothing but “natural love and affection”.

The Smiths gave the six-bathroom home a Rob Mills makeover, with marketing for the house featuring one of the banker’s beloved Aston Martins tucked under the porte cochere and the family cat curled up by the fire.

Sale of the spread will free up the couple’s time to enjoy the delights of their landmark Spray Farm winery on the Bellarine Peninsula.

Family matters

When it comes to business it’s all going on around newly ex-bankrupt Eddy Groves, but strangely enough nothing seems to stick to the South African-born former milkman.

Perhaps all that might change now that Greg Medcraft’s ASIC has declared him unprosecutable over the billion-plus collapse of ABC Learning in 2008, but at the moment he merely looks on amid a web of deals taking in his nearest and dearest.

Long as he might to show off the skills that made him a pre-GFC financial darling, he has nothing to do with Imagine, the education venture run by his second wife, PNG-born Viryan Collins-Rubie.

Nor does he own the couple’s house in Palm Beach, on the Gold Coast — a modest $4.2m residence that spills out directly on to the golden sands.

That’s owned by Collins-Rubie, who bought it off Perfection Too, a company which she ran at the time but is now run by her business partner, Bill Adler.

Nor does Groves own reception centre Kanbeki House, in the Gold Coast hinterland — that’s held by a company associated with Adler that in turn leases it to one of Collins-Rubie’s outfits.

How on earth do they remember who owns what?

Lewd fashions

The folk at fashion house Romance Was Born are chatting with lawyers after PR maven Roxy Jacenko dragged them into a social media storm over lewd images of her daughter.

Jacenko went into spin overdrive last week after she revealed Pixie’s images had been manipulated and distributed, a matter she referred to police.

Jacenko, whose hubby Oliver Curtis will face a 30-day trial of insider-trading charges in May, had been tight-lipped on who was responsible for the images.

But the notorious oversharer couldn’t help but nudge the story along, posting a Romance Was Born image to her social media, declaring “Labelled a ‘local hero’ in a mag today, but in reality ... There’s nothing heroic about what you had a part in......”

The label’s founders, Luke Sales and Anna Plunkett, have called in their own spinmeisters to manage their side of the story.

Via spin doctor Tim Allerton, we are told they are “considering their legal position” and taking guidance from a “small Sydney law firm”, but otherwise had no comment.

Veda feeder

The outgoing directors of credit reporting shop Veda didn’t seem fazed by yesterday’s 4pm deadline for indicative bids for the ASIC registry business as they gathered for a quiet farewell dinner at Sydney’s Otto on Monday night.

Veda delists this week following a $2.5 billion takeover bid by NYSE-listed credit data giant Equifax, with the Helen Nugent-led board upstairs at the Italian restaurant basking in the success of Veda’s short locally-listed life.

Meantime, downstairs, John Laws and his wife Caroline were also enjoying the warm weather and a quiet dinner, just back from a horror trip to Europe where both got sick.

Equifax, which is capped at $US12bn, is paying $2.82 a share for Veda compared with its $1.25 issue price in December 2013, so the Veda directors and boss Nerida Caesar can well afford to celebrate.

The Americans have said they will use Veda as a stepping stone into Asia. Could Greg Medcraft’s antiquated registry operation be their next step — as well as Finance Minister Mathias Cormann’s budgetary white knight?

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