Scott Farquhar’s $75m home cash splash

Illustration: Rod Clement.

So just how rich is Atlassian co-founder and boss Scott Far­quhar?

Rich enough that when the Parramatta-born tech billionaire recently settled on his Australian record-breaking purchase of John Bremer Fairfax’s historicElaine in Sydney’s Point Piper, the 37-year-old handed over cash — or the modern day equivalent, a tap of his iPhone — for his family’s $75 million-plus new home.

Records show that Farquhar settled on the 6900sq m New South Head Road property just four weeks after striking the deal with Fairfax at the end of April for a price tag that we understand was between $75m and $80m.

The Elaine property in Sydney’s Point Piper.

The exact sale price is not ­disclosed on transfer documentation.

The house purchase has been made in Farquhar’s name only, with records revealing that he has not taken out any mortgage to facilitate the landmark deal. What did you expect from an IT entrepreneur worth $2.5 billion?

Kim Jackson and Scott Farquhar. Picture: Christian Gilles.

The home was built in 1863, had been in the hands of the Fairfax family for 126 years and had been on the market for three years.

Farquhar’s investment tops the $70m house price record set when businessman Chau Chak Wing bought James Packer’s mansion, La Mer, in Sydney’s harbourside Vaucluse, in 2015.

Farquhar is married to Kim Jackson, a director of infrastructure at Hastings Funds Management. The couple have two children. Elaine’s seven bedrooms should be ample.

Despite their new home purchase, the family appears to still be living in their inner-city Pyrmont apartment, estimated to be worth about $2.5m.

They must be still packing.

Cattle class

Billionaire heir Ryan Stokes was spotted yesterday in economy on a packed Qantas flight from Brisbane to Sydney. Not that he was making a fuss about it.

After all, the scion was having a pretty good day.

Stock in Seven Group ­Holdings — the diversified operating and investment company of which he’s the CEO — was on an absolute tear.

That’s despite no announcement from the company and the listed media asset Seven West, in which Seven Group has a 35 per cent stake, closing down 1.2 per cent.

So why did Seven Group surge 10.6 per cent, adding more than $300m to its now $3.2 billion market cap? The Stokes family, by the way, controls a 73 per cent stake in that.

Some called it the “Stensholt effect”, citing some glowing investment commentary.

Others pointed to the triumphant result Caterpillar released the night before, which has some particularly good news from China.

That was great news for the Stokes family, whose WesTrac China is the authorised Caterpillar dealer in the northeastern China provinces of Hebei, Liaoning, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia and the municipalities of Beijing and Tianjin.

Demonstrating the family’s interests are wider than the Middle Kingdom, we hear Seven Group executive chairman Kerry Stokes is expected to tonight be among the gala audience to watch British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson give the annual flagship address at Frank Lowy’s foreign affairs institute. Should be a cracker.

Libs nag axed

The Liberal Party horse racing syndicate that included Defence Minister Marise Payne and Canberra lobbyist Matt Hingerty has sold off gelding Tarakona.

It is believed the group of friends, which also included Payne’s NSW Sports Minister partner Stuart Ayres and other members of the Ayres family, sold off the unlucky three-year-old gelding last month.

Quite frankly, the horse had been nothing but trouble.

Over nine starts, Tarakona never placed in a single a race. At his last outing in The Marlow Hotel Group Maiden Handicap a few months back, he came 10th, bringing his total career prize money to $3680.

Defence Minister Marise Payne and husband Stuart Ayres. Picture: Stuart McEvoy.

Even more troublesome was the attention Tarakona drew to his owners Payne and Hingerty after it was revealed that Hingerty’s firm, the Liberal-aligned lobby shop Barton Deakin, was representing clients that were seeking big-ticket Aussie military contracts.

Barton Deakin’s clients include American defence giant Lockheed Martin and Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri, sizeable stakeholders in Payne’s portfolio. Certain members of Canberra’s defence establishment thought the equine connection was a bad look.

It’s believed there are no plans for the Liberal syndicate to reinvest in more horse flesh. Perhaps a wise approach.

Fahour farewell

Communications Minister Mitch Fifield was a no-show at Australia Post boss Ahmed Fahour’s farewell party, which by back-of-the-envelope calculations cost about $43,000.

But former Labor communications minister Stephen Conroy was among the almost 300 guests at the Tuesday night soiree at Melbourne’s Aerial. Fair enough, too. Conroy did appoint the $5.6m man back when Australia Post was chaired by David Mortimer, another Aerial attendee.

Current chairman John Stanhope said some kind words about Fahour’s running of Aussie Post.

“It’s much more complicated than running a fish and chip shop,” Stanhope said in his tribute, echoing a line that Fahour used in his dramatic press conference in February that announced “LeBron” was moving on.

Tonight, Stanhope, deputy chair Holly Kramer and their fellow directors will meet to decide whether former NAB executive Fahour will keep his seat on the board of Aramex, the Dubai-headquartered transport and logistics group in which Australia Post invested $200m under Fahour’s guidance.

Interestingly, a month after announcing he was leaving Australia Post, Fahour set off to Dubai for an Aramex annual general meeting at which he was elected the group’s deputy chairman.

So it looks like Aramex chairman Abdullah al-Mazrui has expressed his opinion on Fahour’s future.

We’ll find out soon if Stanhope and the gang agree.

Back to school

A fortnight ago we noted NAB boss Andrew Thorburn’s long-serving head of government relations, Dallas McInerney,was leaving the bank.

Now we know where he’s going. Days after his success as a speaker for the Warringah motion at the NSW Liberals’ preselection showdown over the weekend, McInerney has just been named as the inaugural chief executive of Catholic Schools NSW.

The outfit is the Steve Sedgwick-chaired peak body that represents the state’s Catholic schools.

Thanks to federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham’s recent reforming efforts on school funding, McInerney’s 591 schools should keep him busy.

And what of McInerney’s replacement as NAB? The search continues.