What MacBanker Nicholas Moore does in retirement

Cartoon: Rod Clement.

Nicholas Moore was always a keen jogger and swimmer, but the retired Macquarie Group boss shaved six minutes off his previous time in the annual ocean swim between Palm Beach and Whale Beach.

Competing in the gruelling long-weekend challenge in the 60-and-over age category for a second year, Moore did the 2.8km in 53 minutes and 46 seconds.

There was a full tide with lumpy waves when the race began early on Australia Day. He was 18th fastest male among the 89 competing in his yellow-cap age category.

Moore finished 344th among the 1150 competitors in what’s officially known as The Macquarie Big Swim, which Margin Call calculates as the 21st year of sponsorship by the masters of the wet universe.

With a holiday home at Whale Beach, Moore has long been a keen participant. Indeed after taking the reins at the bank from Allan Moss in 2008 he only missed one race around the northern beaches headland.

Macquarie's chief executive Shemara Wikramanayake with predecessor Nicholas Moore. Picture: James Croucher

This time last year, just after Moore ended 33 years at the millionaires factory, he posted a time of 59 minutes, 50 seconds.

While most of his investments since departing the Martin Place headquarters are not known, Moore has recently taken the chair of Willow, the software start-up co-founded by Joshua Ridley and Dale Brett. He has also taken the chair of the Smith Family.

Moore’s Macquarie shares are worth about $360m and paying $16m annually in dividends.

His successor, CEO Shemara Wikramanayake, who has seen the share price rise from $114 to $146, didn’t compete in the swim.

Former ironman champion turned Olympic swimmer and America’s Cup sailor Ky Hurst, who is now a crewman for Team Australia on the Sail GP series, took first place in 35 minutes.

The oldest to finish was retired diplomat John Kelso, who at 90 did it in one hour and seven minutes.

There was one notable no-show when local LJ Hooker estate agent David Edwards broke his toe the day before.

He’d be hoping the well-heeled competitors had spotted the auction board on the beach.

The board is for the weekender of Shay Lewis-Thorp, daughter of the late property developer Bernard Lewis and wife Toni, which has a guide of $12.5m to $14m.

Lewis-Thorp secured the home in 2011 from sharemarket investor Walter Lewin who’d bought it from telco pioneer Barry Roberts-Thompson and his wife Victoria.

Open ocean swims are just as popular in Melbourne. Paul Little, 73, the former MD at Toll Holdings, competed in the recent 1500m Blazer Portsea Swim Classic along with his wife, Jane Hansen, the CEO of the Hansen Little Foundation, finishing one minute later. Hansen was honoured as an Officer of the Order of Australia on the weekend.

Beach party

With many of the Portsea glitterati either at Elton John’s Hanging Rock concert or the Australian Open, Melbourne’s summer weekend playground was a little quieter than usual.

Some stayed for Saturday’s lavish party at Mileura, the Shelley Beach, Portsea, home of the former Spotless Group chair Brian Blythe and wife Helen.

The invite humbly said “Summer Drinks” but it was much more than that.

Lindsay Fox, spotted earlier in the day in pineapple print bathers, and wife Paula were there, along with John and Pauline Gandel plus Leigh and Sue Clifford. One attendee advised the party may have cost $400,000.

Golf carts transported the departing guests down the looped driveway from the marquees in the backyard of the clifftop home. Mini-buses were waiting to take them home.

Margin Call heard the music getting started when attending the Saturday afternoon auction of boatshed 37 down below on Shelley Beach. Just a dozen or so attended the on-sand auction with the temperature edging towards 30C.

RT Edgar agent Warwick Anderson had a $300,000 to $330,000 price guide, below the known 2015 record Shelley Beach price of $615,000.

Anderson put in a $300,000 vendor bid for the shed, which is handy for storing the chairs, beach toys and lifejackets.

Margin Call gleans the vendor was veteran Melbourne stockbroker Peter Hollick, whose stellar career included a stint at McCaughan Dyson & Co on Wall Street.

Hollick and wife Helen Pattison have owned nearby since picking up a mortgagee offering in the 1990s recession.

Their 6m by 3m boat shed is built of masonry, sturdier than the traditional wooden boxes, and came with a $390,000 capital improved valuation.

For many decades there were Mornington Peninsula trophy homes up for auction on the Australia Day long weekend, but this has waned to just a handful of boatshed auctions.

A 14sq m Blairgowrie boatshed, initially listed with $325,000 hopes through hockingstuart agent Tim Bradler, was called on the market at $305,000. With two bidders, boatshed 39 was knocked down at $350,000.

Elsewhere amid moonah trees on Tyrone Beach, Rye boatshed 122 fetched $384,000 after having a $340,000 to $360,000 guide. Rob Curtain and Danielle Vains at Peninsula Sotheby’s had three bidders on their offering. Seems their vendor recently bought on Shelley Beach off market.

The tricky pricing issues on Shelley arise from how much demand there is from off-beach buyers, amid a seeming lack of interest from the beachfront homeowners.

The Hollicks’ one was always going to be hard work, being located mid-beach with price adjustments for every step taken on the hot sand.

Lavender in the pink

The team at customer experience agency CX Lavender are back at their desks after a four-day long weekend. That’s thanks to their own generosity and founder Will Lavender.

The UK-born entrepreneur, who set up the advertising agency in 1997, organised a work auction to raise funds after the bushfires.

Lavender offered Friday off, or an extra day’s holiday in the bank, if they raised $20,000.

With the proceeds going to assist the work of vets via Animals Australia, they had raised $18,000 before the last item, a hand-drawn artwork donated by the company’s ex-art director. Only expected to fetch a couple hundred bucks, Lavender shelled out $2000 to get the company to its target.

One of the many prizes was a home-cooked meal at Lavender’s Manly abode which will come with an earlier snorkelling session at nearby Cabbage Tree Bay aquatic reserve.

Medich in court

A member of Sydney’s Medich family has a court mention today. It is the sad case of Denise Medich, the daughter of the imprisoned property developer Ron Medich.

Her Burwood, Sydney, Local Court hearing follows being arrested for allegedly possessing meth in Cabarita late last year.

Just after midnight in mid-December, she flagged down a police car thinking it was a taxi.

Medich has been seeking to follow in her developer father’s footsteps, with a career in real estate.

One of four children from Medich’s marriage to his first wife, Gail, Denise barely rated a mention in the dramatic book, Dead Man Walking, written by the author Kate McClymont AM, who was among the Australia Day honours list. During his interview with McClymont, 2GB broadcaster Ray Hadley told his listeners yesterday that Dead Man Walking had been the must-read in his holiday reading pile.

Medich, who was locked up two years ago for the 2009 shooting of business partner Michael McGurk, is appealing against his sentence of 37 years. The 71-year-old’s lawyers are preparing for the May hearing.