Treasury boss John Fraser’s $11m property empire

Illustration: Rod Clement.

Scott Morrison’s departing Treasury secretary John Fraser has amassed a property portfolio worth more than $11 million.

Clearly, the former London-based UBS banker wasn’t exaggerating about not needing the $850,000-a-year Treasury secretary gig.

And as best as Margin Call can determine, the 66-year-old Fraser and wife Jillian Fraser’s property empire is mortgage-free. Happy days.

Appropriately for a man who famously warned in 2015 that Sydney was “unequivocally” in a “housing bubble”, the 66-year-old’s latest acquisition was well away from the Harbour City.

At the start of last year his JA Fraser Holdings vehicle paid a combined $4.675m for two holdings in regional Victoria between Geelong and Ballarat, in Bamganie. The perfect spot to save the wombats, should Fraser want to do a Ken Henry in his life after Treasury.

The Frasers also have a $1m property a bit closer to Melbourne in Emerald, which they bought in 2009 when Fraser was living in London and was the chairman and CEO of UBS Global Asset Management.

They also have a Melbourne town residence in bayside Brighton, a favourite of Victoria’s banking class. The couple paid $3.2m for the home way back in 2007.

Wife Jillian also controls a half share in a home at Smiths Beach on Phillip Island, so they pretty much have all the bases covered in Dan Andrews’ Victoria.

Up in Sydney, Fraser owns a two-bedder pad in the landmark Astor building for which he appears to have paid $1.4m in 2014, a year before his infamous bubble call.

Fraser’s Astor neighbours include actor Cate Blanchett and her husband, playwright and ­director Andrew Upton, who bought the building’s penthouse from Mark Bouris for a frothy $8m in 2015.

And while beyond our line of sight, we gather there are some international outposts in the Frasers’ collection.

Should Fraser, like now NAB chairman Henry, find that saving hairy-nosed mammals doesn’t quite fill the hours in his life after Treasury, the famously freethinking Fraser shouldn’t be without options.

As the soon-to-be David Gonski-chaired Sydney Airports and soon-to-be Richard Goyder-chaired Qantas have recently demonstrated, Australia is hardly flush with non-executive directors.

Margin Call last year revealed CBA chair Catherine Livingstone unsuccessfully attempted to recruit former RBA governor Glenn Stevens to her board.

Might she be interested in Fraser, one of Stevens’s former RBA boardmates?

Chairman David Murray’s AMP board is also a work in progress. While Fraser is not the required gender (the financial services shop’s sole female director, Patty Akopiantz, has announced she’s off), like Murray he’s not afraid of speaking his mind — and his Sydney bolthole is an easy stroll from AMP’s Circular Quay headquarters.

Surely well worthy catching up for a coffee or a single malt.

Lloyd’s new gig

Former Perpetual boss Geoff Lloyd clearly wasn’t chairman David Murray’s pick to run AMP, which despite all its recent drama is still the biggest wealth shop in the land.

Yesterday, NAB’s brazenly pinstriped CEO Andrew Thorburn revealed Lloyd has a more modest, although not insignificant, new job.

NAB chief executive Andrew Thorburn. Picture: Aaron Francis

Lloyd has been chosen to run the advice and superannuation business MLC, which NAB’s restless boss Thorburn plans to spin off (either in an IPO or trade sale) by the end of 2019.

The market will decide soon enough, but estimates to date have valued MLC at more than $3 billion. Lloyd’s old shop Perpetual is currently valued at $2bn on the ASX, so if all goes to plan it should be a step up in the local financial world.

When he starts on September 1, Lloyd will trim the workload of the three members of Thorburn’s executive team who currently share MLC’s responsibilities: chief operating officer Antony Cahill (the direct report of current MLC super boss Matt Lawrance), chief technology and operations officer Patrick Wright and chief customer officer Andrew Hagger (better known to many as the majestically pocket-squared witness at Kenneth Hayne’s royal commission).

There had been some speculation about whether, as NAB’s former wealth boss, Hagger might put his pianist hands up to leave the nest and run the soon-to-be independent MLC.

But that always seemed a modest enterprise for a man of Hagger’s ambition.

Docklands sources tell Margin Call the talented musician Hagger has designs on Thorburn’s top office. He’s far from the only member of Thorburn’s executive team with dreams of taking over the top job at the $76bn bank.

But that’s still some time away.

More immediate is Murray’s search for a CEO to run his $10.5bn financial services shop.

While it’s not a big four, AMP is still a lot bigger than a big four wealth offcut.

Tempting?

Super life almost over

Margin Call yesterday in passing described former Australian Financial Review editor Gerard Noonan as “the apparent chairman for life” at industry fund minnow Media Super.

It’s an epithet Noonan has long earned. He’s chaired Media Super and its predecessor JUST Super since 1991.

But we understand that after 27 years, it has been decided that this will be member director Noonan’s last term. That’s no reflection on his performance as chair, just a recognition that after almost three full decades, it’s time for a new leader.

These days, the fashion in industry funds is for an independent chair, rather than a member or employer-appointed director.

Media Super’s current, sole independent director, Carmel Tebbutt. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

That puts in the succession mix Media Super’s current, sole independent director Carmel Tebbutt, the former NSW state minister and better half of Anthony Albanese. That would be on top of her new job as boss of NSW Mental Health Co-ordinating Council.

Although it is possible the whole thing is packed in.

With a relatively modest $5bn under management, there’s some talk it might be best to roll Media Super into one of the industry giants.