You don’t have to scratch too hard to discover that Melbourne property developer Tim Gurner’s almost sold-out, $540m St Moritz luxury apartment development in seaside St Kilda holds many tales of woe.
Margin Call has already told you of disputes concerning delayed settlements on multimillion-dollar apartments purchased off the plan by billionaire Alex Waislitz and media proprietor and real estate entrepreneur Antony Catalano.
Last we heard, Waislitz and his fiance, Rebekah Bebehani, were yet to settle on their multimillion-dollar, bespoke sky home.
And this week we reported on the closure of the up-market eatery Loti Restaurant and Bar at the base of The Esplanade apartment complex, run by Sydney hospitality businessman Cameron Northway, thanks to a lack of custom.
Now news has arrived of developments around the sixth floor apartment owned by Sarah Cox, the wife of former Melbourne Rebels Super Rugby club owner and private equiteer Andrew Cox, founder of Imperial Capital Group.
The millionaire couple settled on their no-expense-spared, brand-new seaside apartment for $9.76m in December last year, with the assistance of a mortgage from Westpac.
A couple of weeks ago, Margin Call hears, a caveat was slapped on their three-bedroom slice of St Kilda by a Perth-based financial services company called Propel Finance Pty Ltd. That outfit is owned by the larger Realty Assist Australia, whose principals include Peter Wall and Samuel Rettke, also out of Perth.
And now the Cox sub-penthouse is up for sale, with the businessman and his wife seeking between $10m and $11m.
All this follows the couple trying – unsuccessfully – to sell their historic Italianate mansion, “Narellan”, on Brighton’s so-called Golden Mile in the period before they settled on their new waterfront apartment.
First Narellan was on the market in the second quarter of 2021 for between $18m and $19m, and then again early in 2022 with a reduced price range of $13.7m to $15m.
That home is mortgaged to Credit Suisse.
Cox should know Bayside. He’s part owner of fashionable restaurant Elwood Bathers set, overlooking the sand at Elwood beach.
His private equity outfit, Imperium Capital Group, also has a range of hospitality and tourism interests in Queenstown, New Zealand, as well as other company investments.
Gurner and his designer wife Aimee Gurner, who live away from the bay in Toorak, have an apartment in the St Moritz building that they too want to sell.
The Gurners have been asking $15m for the home, but for now have taken the apartment off the market.
Margin Call contacted Cox via his Imperial Capital for comment.
Go your own way
Former Nuix chair and veteran Macquarie banker Dan Phillips is nothing if not loyally disloyal when it comes to running his own legal race in the case brought against him and his board colleagues when the tech company hit the sharemarket in 2020.
Phillips has commissioned his own legal representation rather than following in the footsteps of his other former directors in taking on the services of Jones Day partner John Emmerig.
But Phillips’ latest court filing caught our eye, hinting at Phillips following his trusted friend in law – corporate, litigation and regulatory veteran Robert Mangioni – wherever the wind may blow.
You see Watson Mangioni Lawyers is no more, after Mark Watson, Chris Clarke and Steve Mattiussi flew the coop.
From the ashes, however, has arisen Mangioni Biggs + Co, with the eponymous Mangioni, and unsurprisingly former Watson Mangioni director John Biggs, as well as David McGuiness and John Murray making up the Co.
Mangioni is billing the change to clients as “an evolution”, with a corporate logo that looks like a few paperclips intertwined to form a love heart. The firm’s new website makes it look like it’s been around forever.
So now the firm stands ready to represent Phillips and face the withering glare of Minter Ellison as they seek to slam Nuix’s former board over a veritable deluge of allegedly dodgy figures that the company regulator ASIC claims the directors allowed to be published, knowing full well they were wrong. The case, set to hit court in December, will litigate that very question. The directors have denied any wrongdoing.
For Phillips’ sake, we hope things go better next time he’s in the court box than it did when he faced down Nuix’s former CEO and co-founder Eddie Sheehy over his oodles of options.
Misleading message
In June oil and gas industry mouthpiece Samantha McCulloch was so proud of her new multimillion-dollar advertising campaign, showing how natural gas was “keeping the country running” in a rumoured $20m spend.
The Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association boss, who’s been in the high-profile job less than a year, issued a press release and took to the airways to herald the new initiative to raise public awareness on the importance of natural gas in Oz.
There were lots of nice pictures of the role gas plays in society and the industries that rely on it.
“Gas is important to the Australian way of life,” McCulloch declared.
Alas, the campaign has been pulled after complaints to the Ad Standards Community Panel, which has found that the APPEA advertising was “misleading” and claims that natural gas was “50 per cent cleaner” were “unclear”.
APPEA’s campaign breached the environmental code of the Australian Association of National Advertisers relating to claims in advertising, with the lobby group’s materials now being reworked “to ensure that the general public can substantiate the messages presented”.
APPEA chair and Woodside Energy boss Meg O’Neill must be so proud at the money well spent.
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