Robert Magid property sale picks up pace as apartments and Manly Wharf to go

Businessman Robert Magid is offloading the bulk of his property assets worth more than $400m, including Manly Wharf.

Robert Magid is stepping up his biggest ever portfolio asset sale, with more than $400m worth of high-profile properties being sold in less than a year.

Property developer and investor Robert Magid is stepping up his biggest ever portfolio asset sale, with more than $400m worth of high-profile properties being sold in less than a year.

The hospitality and apartments veteran, who also owns the high-profile The Australian Jewish News, has been selling off property as markets have picked up, leaving his family cashed up as the economic cycle turns.

The Sydney-based tycoon quietly offloaded a Bondi Junction apartment site in the city’s Eastern Suburbs to a Chinese developer for $167m and is putting the glamorous Manly Wharf up for grabs for about $80m.

The moves come in the wake of him offloading two hotels, in Sydney and Melbourne, earlier this year, for close to $90m, as he scales back parts of his hospitality empire.

The Point Piper-residing Mr Magid owns TMG Developments and was worth about $588m according to The List.

The Bondi Junction site, in which interests associated with developer Allen Linz held a minority interest, sold to Chinese developer JQZ. The eight-storey office block could be demolished to make way for a 20-storey, mixed-use residential tower, which Mr Magid had long planned. But he took a cautious approach on the project and sold it this year via CBRE.

His portfolio had already been lightened by the sales of the Hotel Lindrum in Melbourne to property developer Time & Place for about $50m. That triple fronted property, which has one of Melbourne’s most famous facades, was sold with a permit in place for a 30-level mixed-use hotel and residential project.

In Sydney, Indonesian-backed Invictus Pacific Alpha Management picked up Mr Magid‘s Harbour Rocks Hotel in The Rocks district for about $40m. TMG also sold a major development site in Melbourne’s Mulgrave to Charter Hall for $84m, as part of plans to “recycle and redirect capital”.

The looming sale of Manly Wharf is tipped to generate significant international and local buyer interest.

CBRE’s Simon Rooney and James Douglas are handling the marketing of the waterfront retail and hospitality asset, which is home to renowned venues such as Hugo’s, The Wharf Bar, Sake, Queen Chow, El Camino and the Bavarian Bier Café.

Built in 1855 as a passenger terminal, Manly Wharf was transformed into a food and beverage mecca by TMG after they acquired the long-term leasehold in 1995.

“Trophy retail assets such as Manly Wharf are historically tightly held, rarely traded, and highly sought after. The flexibility around the future potential to strategically remix the tenancy profile and capitalise on multiple value-add opportunities will be a major draw card for both domestic and international capital,” Mr Rooney said.