Former Australian cricket captain Steve Smith and wife Danielle Willis are house hunting.
They’ve inspected a vast $7m Vaucluse mansion not far from where they’ve been renting since moving out of their longtime Coogee apartment.
The mansion is just around the corner from a house that another former captain, Michael Clarke, bought for $8.5m in 2014.
The four-bedroom family home the Smiths are checking out is an off-market listing. There were failed marketing campaigns in 2017 and 2018 when it had $7.4m hopes.
It was a $3750-a-week rental just over a year ago.
Smith, a keen property investor, has been quiet on the property front for the past couple of years, having previously bought three investment properties on the Balmain peninsula over a two-year period to 2015.
His purchases were bought through his company, SS415, named after his baggy green number 415 from his first Test call-up in 2010.
Margin Call calculates he has well over $6m tied up in property, including Marrickville and Sans Souci investments.
Meanwhile, his childhood home at Alfords Point in Sydney’s south is up for sale. His mum and dad, Gillian and Peter Smith, have hopes of $1.5m for the home they bought for $170,000 in 1994 when Steve was just four years old. They want to spend more time on the NSW south coast.
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High and dry
Ian Malouf’s $40m super yacht Mischief is out of the water at Trinity Inlet, Cairns, hanging mid-air on the world’s largest ship hoist.
Malouf, who with his daughter Ellie run yacht booking business Ahoy Club, are at present in Sydney. However, they are keen to get back up to far north Queensland after the month’s maintenance is completed by BSW Maritime Solution, which spent $20m on the hoist.
The crew, headed by Captain Luke Cagney, have been self-isolating on the reef for the past few weeks.
Malouf is prepping the yacht for his next big event, ringside at the 2021 America’s Cup.
The Prada 36th America’s Cup is scheduled to be hosted in Auckland next March by the winner of the 2017 cup, the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron. The champion Australian sailor and veteran official Iain Murray will be serving as the regatta director for the third consecutive time. The Sydney-based Murray raced in four America’s Cups during his sailing career.
Margin Call recollects a boat named Mischief, popularly known as the Iron Pot, took the race honours back in 1881 when sailed by Joseph R. Busk from the New York Yacht Club.
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Paradise lost
The receivership within James Mawhinney’s Mayfair 101 extended conglomerate likely spells the end of his tropical Queensland tourism project for Dunk Island, off Mission Beach.
IPO Wealth Holdings, an investment management company within the Mawhinney stable, has missed two payments totalling $3m to the Craig Dunstan-run trustee fund Vasco, which had receivers appointed on Friday.
The fund is separate to vehicles used by Mayfair on its Dunk Island venture but the receivership could put a strain on the overall business.
The Dunk scheme always looked ambitious given the history of enterprising island failures along the cyclone ravaged coast.
Mayfair 101 investment brochures were pitched at investors who were tired of low interest rates, suggesting that investing in Mayfair Australian property bonds was an effective way to generate a yield with the security support of registered first mortgages over the Queensland properties.
They suggested there was potential to earn anywhere between 5.25 per cent and 9.2 per cent per annum with fixed monthly income.
It was just for “wholesale investors” — anyone with $250,000 plus.
There was also the ever grander dream Mawhinney had for an island rejuvenation off Venice, Italy. Isola San Spirito — the island of the Holy Spirit — is an undeveloped 2.4ha in the Venetian lagoon, just 10 minutes by water taxi from San Marco Square.
Development was expected to commence this year by the London-based team at Mayfair Iconic Properties, which shared marketing platforms with Mayfair 101.
The oldest known news about Santo Spirito dates back to 1140, when the monastic order, the Regular Canons, was based there. Two centuries later, in 1380, the monks were driven out of the island and the Cistercians arrived. Fast forward to the arrival of Napoleon, which saw the church and the monastery looted. It was a powder keg during World War II, and abandoned since 1965.
Around 2003 the island was sold by the state. It was again offered for sale in 2011 with $40m hopes and approval for residential, community, commercial and hotel use.
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Moore eyes Everest
Racing legend John Moore, who’s heading back to Sydney having hit the compulsory retirement age of 70 at the Hong Kong Jockey Club, has his eye on The TAB Everest.
Moore is hopeful of bringing his stable star Aethero with him for the new racing season starting in August. The plan is to put him out at Muskoka Farm for a break and then aim for a run in the The Everest.
Moore, the son of all-time-great jockey George Moore, intends partnering with his trainer brother, Gary.
He has been a dominant trainer in Hong Kong since licensed there in 1985, with more than 1700 winners and seven trainer premierships.
Just on the weekend, Australian expatriate jockey Zac Purton, who’s in a tussle with arch rival Joao Moreira to defend his premiership crown, rode the Sha Tin Vase Handicap winner on the John Moore-trained Thanks Forever.
Purton often rides for Moore, having taken out The Queen’s Silver Jubilee Cup and The Chairman’s Trophy atop the Kiwi sprinter Beauty Generation.
There are 14 meetings left in the Hong Kong season which finishes on July 15, with Moore unlikely to match his incredible feat of last year when his stable notched 74 winners. It has 47 so far this season.
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Restaurant revival
Acclaimed chef Christine Manfield was excited to be finally allowed out to have dinner in a restaurant at the weekend. She and partner Margie Harris were spotted at their local, the internationally renowned restaurant Pipit at Pottsville in the NSW Northern Rivers region.
Chef Ben Devlin was serving their meals of duck breast with quince glaze, persimmon and pumpkin, with plenty of admiration, love and respect being shown by his diners.
Apparently explosions of flavour in every bite!
With dine-in reservations more important than ever because of limited capacity and spacing requirements, the OpenTable reservations website has seen a surge in bookings, Kalimaya Krabbe, the communications manager at OpenTable International, advised.
Just yesterday Tokyo Bird took over 30 bookings for future sessions at the Surry Hills, Sydney, Japanese diner. Cumulus INC in Melbourne’s CBD took around 40 bookings with the reopening of Victorian restaurants from June 1.
It’s hard to get a table at Catalina, Rose Bay, without knowing the McMahon family, which has ensured the Coppleson stockbroking family have been spotted at the harbourside destination. Ditto Erika Heynatz with husband Andrew Kingston. Sydney 2GB radio veteran Paul B Kidd was boastful that he’d secured a table at the Double Bay dining institution, 21. Since restrictions were first relaxed interior designer Blainey North has caught up with a half dozen gals at Barry McDonald’sGiorgio diner at the Kings Cross fountain.
MCA backs itself into corner over unwelcome guest speakers
Another day, another dreadful call by an arts institution, this time Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art, which has got itself in a tangle over a bash booked by Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi for International Women’s Day.
Team Mike v Team Annie: Cannon-Brookes staffer ordered to hand over phone, laptops, passwords
Amid a $23bn divorce, Mike Cannon-Brookes is suing the absolute pants off of a once-trusted family office executive, claiming corporate skulduggery has been afoot.