John Symond’s megayacht sets sail to new owner

Illustration: Rod Clement

Aussie Home Loans founder John Symond has sold Hasna, his megayacht, almost a year after he put it up for sale.

Listed with an adjusted €92.5m ($151m) asking price, the 73m vessel, which was delivered in 2017, has been quickly renamed Lunasea by its new mystery owner, who appears to have a phonetic sense of humour.

Symond’s London-based son Stephen was getting the lion’s share of the boat’s family usage. After sailing from New York City it has been down at Palm Beach, Florida since March.

Hasna, which won an award at the 2018 World Superyacht Awards, was built by Dutch shipyard Royal van Lent to a design by Redman Whiteley Dixon.

Aussie John and wife Amber haven’t been on board for over a year to enjoy its own beach club, with an 8m infinity pool, gym, massage room, hair salon and 10-seat cinema.

But he’s apparently thinking about their next design.

Ben Ritchie, from the sales team at Y.Co, reckons Hasna was “one of the finest Feadships ever built.”

John Symond's superyacht in New York

Against the grain

Dozens of Australian grain growers have been caught up in the collapse of Phoenix Commodities, a Dubai-based grain trader.

It collapsed after accumulating $US400m ($557m) of losses on currency hedges that it has blamed on a rogue trader.

There’s big lenders hit including BNP, along with Wyelands Bank, the specialist lender owned by the Potts Point industrialist Sanjeev Gupta, which provided more than $100m of funds.

BNP Paribas has halted new grain commodity finance deals as it reviews its future in the sector. Old-timers recall BNP Paribas all but invented modern commodity trade finance with Marc Rich in the 1970s.

The collapse left Phoenix holding chickpeas worth $17,000 among their limited local assets in Australia.

The Phoenix Group operated globally including at Toowong near Brisbane. The business, founded 20 years ago, was generating $3bn in annual revenue trading grain, and also coal and metals, but seemingly unravelled when the coronavirus outbreak upset financial markets.

Deloitte’s David Orr is handling the liquidation in Australia, having been referred by Deloitte APAC partner Matt Becker.

Glencore and Cargill are among the local creditors.

Wavish waves goodbye

Former Woolworths and Myer boss Bill Wavish and wife Vonnie have seen their Palm Beach weekender fly off the shelf.

The hillside Bynya Road home had a guide of $7.5m, with strong buyer interest boosting price their hopes, and selling just two weeks after being listed through LJ Hooker’s Peter Robinson.

The Michael Robilliard-designed home was last traded in 2009, shortly after the 72-year-old stepped back from the Myer chairmanship. The then sellers of Koombahla at $5.45m were Surfection’s Chris and Amanda Athas.

Wavish has apparently also found a buyer for their Kurraba Point harbourfront abode.

Ahead of the game

It’s not just being a millionaire gamer that Elliott Watkins and Lannan Eacott have in common. Now it’s coastal Sydney eastern suburbs trophy homes.

Last week Margin Call advised that 26-year-old Watkins, gamer name Muselk and the son of Coca-Cola Amatil boss Alison Watkins, dropped $9,125,000 on the Tamarama home of cinematographer Peter James.

And now Eacott, the 25-year-old gamer better known as LazarBeam, has emerged as a $9.9m buyer just nearby. It is a five-bedroom home in Clovelly, smashing the exclusive beach suburb’s price record in the process for selling agent David Tyrrell at Phillips Pantzer Donnelley.

The oceanfront home was built two years ago after the old original property traded for $3,615,000 in 2016.

Eacott, like Watkins, will be moving from the inner west, having paid $3.6m for a state-of-the art Rozelle home.

Margin Call gleans Watkins and Eacott often collaborate on projects. And Eacott has been in a relationship with Watkins’ sister, Ilsa.

Eacott first hit YouTube in 2014 making slow-motion demolition videos while working for his family’s construction business.

Since making gaming videos, he’s accumulated 17 million subscribers across his platforms with total views around six billion.

Last year Eacott was YouTube’s eighth most-viewed content creator. He dropped out of school when he was 15.

JB Hi-fives

The landline phones of their Southbank, Melbourne HQ were unsurprisingly unattended, but there was an ASX update late Tuesday that announced some timely cheer for the JB Hi-Fi officialdom.

Some 159,000 options have satisfied their vesting conditions and are able to be exercised.

The share price closed at $45.74 on Tuesday, just short of Monday’s $46 record high, so are currently worth $7.25m-plus.

There were four tranches dating back to 2016, according to the update from company secretary Doug Smith. No names were advised, but they were all issued at zero cents and mostly have a 2022 expiry date.

Design time

Sydney interior designer specialist Tamsin Johnson is set to give Vogue Living readers an online masterclass in interior design on Wednesday evening.

It is as part of Vogue’s 3 Days of Design festival organised by editor Edwina McCann who says Johnson is the name behind some of the magazine’s favourite recent projects.

She’ll be giving an insight in to her signature style, blending antique finds with contemporary classics, and providing some of her tricks of the trade.

The 20 minute vlog will include a tour of her William Street, Paddington, office and sample library, where she’ll be discussing some design principles, styling, and how she approaches the design process.

Sadly no glimpse into the Tamarama home she shares with her tailor husband Patrick Johnson which has $5.5m to $6m hopes for its auction next week.

Vogue’s design festival kicked off with the US-based expatriate Richard Christiansen, the founder and creative director of Chandelier Creative, offering a guided tour of his LA property Flamingo Estate.

With the help of Studio KO, he transformed a pink 1940s hideaway in LA’s Eagle Rock to a lavish estate, known in design communities across the world as one of America’s most eclectic and unique projects.

Christiansen grew up in Duranbah in northern NSW, and after magazine stints in the UK, Italy and Sweden, eventually landed in New York.

It’s Tamsin’s turn on Wednesday, followed by the Brooklyn-based Athena Calderone of Eye Swoon, who is sharing her tips on cooking, in her marble-clad kitchen.

Starting young

The Darlinghurst-based tech entrepreneur, and former Bain consultant for not quite three years, Bridget Loudon has joined Telstra’s board, becoming the youngest independent director of an ASX 200 company.

The 32-year-old is the chief executive and co-founder of employment marketplace Expert360, which she started at 25.

It is described as Australia’s busiest top talent freelance jobs platform, with more than 1000 companies and 30,000 professionals who pay an annual subscription to use its services. Must be somewhat rarefied as apparently McKinsey types secure many of the white collar jobs on offer.

Since its 2013 start-up it has seen investment from the likes of Airtree co-founder Daniel Petre, former Macquarie chief Allan Moss, former CBA and Westpac CIO Bob McKinnon, and former Goldman Sachs executive Sean Hogan. The only known younger ASX-listed board director is Afterpay co-founder Nick Molnar, who turned 30 in February.