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Billionaire Will Vicars splashes $150m on Sydney beachside real estate
By Lucy Macken
Billionaire fund manager Will Vicars is showing signs of a seriously expensive penchant for high-end property, placing him among the top “mega-investors” in Sydney’s eastern suburbs thanks to his two latest high-end purchases.
Vicars, who runs hedge fund Caledonia Investments and owns Aussie luxury accessories brand Oroton, is already well documented for owning about $120 million worth of eastern suburbs real estate, from his Point Piper home to his Bondi Beach summer penthouse in the Bondi Pacific, and blocks of apartments from Double Bay to North Bondi.
The Bronte house sold for $18.75 million is approved for demolition to make way for a three-level residence designed by Tobias Partners.Credit: Domain
What more could he want? That would be a house opposite Bronte Beach for $18.75 million and a newly built Tamarama penthouse for about $14 million, according to recently updated settlement records.
Vicars’ Bronte purchase was almost two years in the making. To explain, the home of artist Natalie Penn was listed in late 2021 for $18.5 million to $20 million by Highland Property’s William Manning, and, amid a hush-hush withdrawal from the market, a caveat was lodged on title by lawyers at Speed and Stracey law firm on behalf of the mystery buyer.
Will Vicars is the owner of Oroton and the joint chief investment officer at Caledonia, one of Australia’s biggest hedge funds.Credit: Edwina Pickles
Two years later – and long after Penn and her husband, data storage businessman Evan Penn, have moved on to a $9 million home in Clovelly – the Bronte house has been transferred into Vicars’ name, complete with Waverley Council approval for a knock-down rebuild to a design by Tobias Partners.
Vicars’ recently purchased Tamarama penthouse is another local landmark. It is one of two apartments set atop the 1960s building once known as Glenview Court that was originally conceived by architect Harry Seidler until its design was changed and it was finished off by Rene Rivkin’s developer father, Walter.
For decades, the 78-apartment complex was unkindly billed as the “Soviet hospital” and “Tamarama Toaster” given its imposing shape and brutalist style, and that was before it was found to be riddled with concrete cancer and slugged with numerous fire rectification orders more than a decade ago.
What followed was an extraordinary bid by the body corporate members to undertake the repair, renewal and extension of the building at what was initially estimated to cost $10 million, funded by adding two luxury penthouses.
The north-facing penthouse atop Skye at Tamarama sold for about $14 million to Will Vicars, almost three years after it was listed for $20 million.Credit: Domain
Within a few years, the rebuild costs had blown out, first to $20 million and by 2021 to $50 million, in part thanks to rising construction costs, COVID delays, and stop-work orders due to the absence of fire sprinklers.
By late 2021, the building was ready for residents and renamed Skye as the penthouses were launched for more than $20 million each through Sotheby’s Francis Egan.
Vicars has done well to take his time on the purchase. The guide was lowered to $16 million before it sold, and given Egan’s no comment on the sale price, it is understood to have sold for closer to $14 million, given the new asking price on its adjoining penthouse.
The north-west facing penthouse atop the landmark building once known as Glenview Court was bought by fund manager Will Vicars.Credit: Domain
In total, Vicars’s latest purchases take his eastern suburbs portfolio to more than $150 million, ranking him alongside fellow mega-investors like Mike and Annie Cannon-Brookes and techie Robin Khuda.
Vicars’s real-estate splurge comes as his long-time investment in Oroton starts to pay off. He went all-in on his investment in the luxury brand in 2017 when he rescued it from administration. Former McKinsey partner Jenny Child was appointed chief executive in 2021, and despite broader cost-of-living pressures, it has clocked up 7 per cent growth in the year to date.
Locals trading up
The Ashfield apartment was a first home purchase for Alex Blackwell and Lynsey Askew in 2017.Credit: Domain
Cricket star Alex Blackwell and her wife, English cricketer Lynsey Askew, are trading up from their first Sydney home, listing the Ashfield apartment given plans to buy a house locally.
Former Australian cricket vice-captain Alex Blackwell was named NSW female cricketer of the year in 2014.Credit: Rhett Wyman
The two-bedroom spread with two balconies and a leafy north-facing aspect was purchased for $739,000 in 2017, two years after the couple had married in England.
Blackwell, the former Australian women’s cricket captain, is not only widely regarded as one of the world’s best female cricketers but has been an outspoken advocate for equality in sport.
An August 3 auction has been set by BresicWhitney’s Rhonda Yim and an $875,000 guide.
Still with Sydney’s home upgraders, artist Louis Pratt, the son of writer Blanche d’Alpuget, and his wife, former SBS TV reporter Brianna Roberts, have sold a couple of apartments to buy a home with more space.
An art deco apartment in Paddington was bought by Louis Pratt and Brianna Roberts for $990,000 in 2019.Credit: Domain
A one-bedroom pad in Newtown that Pratt purchased in 2017 for $670,000 has already been sold for $715,000 by Adrian William’s Michael White.
Sculptor Louis Pratt is the son of writer Blanche d’Alpuget.Credit: Jessica Ross
And the couple’s Paddington home, a one-bedder in an art deco block near Five Ways, has sold for $1.35 million – a decent gain on the $990,000 they paid for it in 2019.
Pratt’s stepfather was former Labor prime minister Bob Hawke, who attended the couple’s Blue Mountains wedding about a week before he died in May 2019.