Twiggy Forrest and Tattarang said to be sizing up Byron Bay resort

Could Twiggy be the buyer of Olivia Newton John's Byron Bay Gaia Retreat & Spa? Picture: Mark Sullivan-Bradley

Just when we thought the concentration of A-listers in Byron Bay had reached its peak, it looks as if Australia’s second-richest man Andrew ‘‘Twiggy’’ Forrest may be following the lead of the likes of Thor heart-throb Chris Hemsworth or publican Justin Hemmes by joining in the local property boom.

Margin Call hears Forrest, through his investment vehicle Tattarang, has been kicking the tyres of the secluded wellness resort Gaia Retreat & Spa located in a lesser known hinterland locale of Brooklet, owned in part by none other than Grease icon and all-round local superstar Olivia Newton-John.

Cartoon: Rod Clement.

The 73-year-old singer, along with co-owners Gregg Cave, Ruth Kalnin and Warwick Evans, put the 22-room luxury resort complete with day spa, heated saltwater swimming pool and two organic vegetable gardens on the market earlier this year, noting that after 16-odd years of ownership it was time to move on.

“We have decided it is time to ‘pass the baton’ to new custodians so they can continue our positive message that Gaia is ‘your time-out to reconnect, breathe and surrender’,” Newton-John noted at the time, adding that she hoped new custodians would be “like-minded visionaries” inspired to maintain their ethos.

The resort, which offers wellness and spa packages that go for up to $20,000 a week, boasts of being the most awarded lifestyle retreat in the country and even sells its own brand of consumables, such as maple activated pecans and hemp dukkah.

Plenty there for Tattarang and its investment crew to work with, if indeed it does make its first foray in the east coast market, with the group thought to be in exclusive due diligence for the site.

Go east, young man

While it comes with a hefty (as yet unknown) price tag, the timing couldn’t be more perfect for Twiggy, who this week is lining up to reap a bumper $2.4bn windfall thanks to his Fortescue dividends – probably the largest individual dividend cheque in Australian corporate history.

Twiggy Forrest and his wife Nicola. Picture: Supplied.

Much of that is destined for Tattarang’s increasingly varied investment coffers, led by chief investment officer John Hartman.

On the property front, Minderoo has historically kept close to Forrest’s roots on the west coast, with property fund Fiveight investing in the growing investment group’s headquarters at Old Swan Brewery, and more recently unveiling its plans for an $85m luxury eco-resort dubbed the Ningaloo Lighthouse Project on the hillside of the Vlamingh Lighthouse at Exmouth.

Hartman hinted late last year that east coast purchases were on the horizon, of which Gaia would be the first.

“Property is a big focus. You will see us being more and more active in the market both in Western Australia and on the east coast,” Mr Hartman said at the purchase of a Perth CBD office tower in November.

“Fiveight has a flexible investment mandate – we look across all asset classes, both active and passive. This flexibility and appetite for diversity gives us the broadest potential investment opportunity.”

The sale of the 10ha property also includes a further two adjoining residential titles across 4ha, leaving Forrest with potential to build his own Byron holiday home.

While Hartman might oversee the process, it’s his colleague Andrew Hagger who has the tightest link to the prospective investment, however.

Olivia Newton-John and Andrew Hagger.

The chief of Tattarang, formerly of MLC, who also moonlights as a jazz pianist among other talents, has long held connections to vendor Newton-John, the two even collaborating for a tune on Newton-John’s 2008 album A Celebration in Song.

More recently, Hagger has served as chair of the Olivia Newton-John Cancer and Wellness Centre Appeal, the cancer centre which counts Melbourne’s Lord Mayor Sally Capp and Jenny Macklin among its current directors.

While their connections might run deep, it’s highly unlikely the highly contested asset will be going for a song.

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One door shuts …

There’s been plenty of talk of those dudded by Qantas and Alan Joyce’s wide-ranging staff lay-offs over the past 18 months, but it seems there’s at least one former employee holding back from any union action and instead enjoying the spoils of pandemic-induced redundancy.

Head of international Tino La Spina was perhaps the most senior staff member to get the boot in August 2020 as Qantas implemented its raft of cost-saving initiatives and grounded thousands of aircraft.

But any loss for Joyce and his management was a gain for building materials outfit Boral and chief Zlatko Todorcevski, who just months into his own tenure drafted in La Spina to lead the group’s office of finance and strategy.

Former Qantas head of international Tino La Spina with CEO Alan Joyce.

All in all, it has proved to be a lucrative turn of events for Walsh Bay-based La Spina, whose tenure at both firms looks to have overlapped for at least six weeks last financial year, helping him to rake in more than $3m in benefits. At Qantas, his total package for the year included nine months of base salary to cover his redundancy for a total of $1.5m, while Boral handed its most recent executive hire $1.3m along with a tranche of long-term incentive rights worth $1.7m.

Recall the CFO was also party to a lucrative contract renewal amid Boral’s battle with major shareholder Kerry Stokes earlier this year, which saw then-chair Kathryn Fagg agree to a 12-month non-termination clause and a safeguarding of he and Todorcevski’s long-term incentives.

Redundancy suddenly doesn’t seem so bad after all.