Bondi apartments pay the debts
Karin Upton Baker may be holding on tightly to the family home in Elizabeth Bay, but her property developer hubby, Gary Baker, has had to watch two of his crown jewels slip through his hands.
Karin Upton Baker may be holding on tightly to the family home in Elizabeth Bay, but her property developer hubby, Gary Baker, has had to watch two of his crown jewels slip through his hands.Baker's two beachfront apartments at Bondi, just up the road from Icebergs, have been forcibly sold by his lender, Challenger Managed Investments, for a combined $3.3 million to a "Bondi-savvy businessman".The sale price is $1.55 million less than what Baker paid for them two years ago, and more than $5 million less than what he claimed they were worth at the peak of the market. The apartments, which have views-to-die-for from south Bondi to Ben Buckler, sit side by side in the Bondi Pacific Terraces.It is the latest chapter in the break-up of Baker's debt-laden property empire. Challenger had lent $18 million to Baker and his wife, the Australian boss of French luxury label Hermes. It was secured against the two Bondi apartments, two other Bondi pads in the building next door, and their Elizabeth Bay home.As part of the liquidation of his fast-dwindling empire, Baker has been ordered to repay Challenger $4.2 million owed in relation to a luxurious apartment on Benelong Crescent in Bellevue Hill.It is likely to be the next pad to go under the hammer, while the white zinc-wearing revhead's classic American vintage car, a 1960s Mercedes Pagoda, and a Rolls-Royce Phantom are also set to be sold. The Rolls was bought straight off the production line for $1.2 million.The Sutherland Shire lad has liked to park his prized car collection in his Batman-style garage under his Elizabeth Bay penthouse apartment, which overlooks the Boomerang digs of billionaire truckie Lindsay Fox. It even has a turntable to give Baker easy access to driving any of them when he wants. Then there's his sports-cruiser boat moored a stone's throw away at the Elizabeth Bay marina.Upton Baker, meanwhile, is still fighting Challenger over a $5.8 million loan secured against the neoclassical, multi-levelled family apartment in Elizabeth Bay. The case will go to a hearing later this year.PAUL WHO?The Liberal Party's top NSW fund-raiser, Paul Nicolaou, obviously keeps a low profile.He falls so far below the radar, in fact, that Wallace Absolute Return's board issued a statement on Thursday urging shareholders to vote against his appointment as a director partly because they had no idea who he is."I am a Victorian and I don't know anything about him," Wallace Absolute's chairman, Ken Barry, admitted yesterday. "When we released information to the exchange we knew nothing about him."The board will now meet this week to weigh up its opposition to Nicolaou and Gabriel Radzyminski, the founder of activist hedge fund Sandon Capital, after their resumes belatedly arrived in its letterbox on Friday.Apart from his role as the executive chairman of the NSW Liberal Party's Millennium Forum fund-raising arm, Nicolaou is probably best known as the Liberal candidate who lost the byelection of John Brogden's vacated seat of Pittwater in 2005 and failed to take the electorate of Ryde in the 2003 state election.His other claim to fame is a director of the flower and chocolate distributor Roses Only.The board of Wallace Absolute - otherwise known as Wallace Absolutely No Return - has also rejected a demand from Sandon to put a resolution to shareholders at a meeting on May 17 calling for the removal of Alan Liddle and the fund's chief executive, Michael Birch, as directors. But it might be forced to reconsider after Radzyminski provided more information over the weekend to justify the demands.G-SPOTTINGMining heavyweight Owen Hegarty is not the only digger to find his G-spot in Asia.In introducing him to the Sydney Mining Club on April Fool's Day, the respected former financial scribe Trevor Sykes pointed out that Hegarty has found his G-spot in the Hong Kong-listed miner G-Resources - something, Sykes went on to say, that several of the attendees had probably found in Asia in the past.Hegarty, vice-chairman of the "Mighty G", then took the lectern to declare that he and Sykes were advising the South Australian Premier, Mike Rann. He quickly added that they were advising the Premier on mining business in the southern state.Donning his hat as the eternal mining optimist, Hegarty delivered his thoughts about the global financial crisis and his belief in the mining super-cycle before spruiking his interests in Asia - namely G-Resources, the Honkers-listed China Sci-Tech Holdings and Tigers Realm (and yes, as Hegarty pointed out, it is the year of the Tiger).He even talked up the imminent resumption of production at the Lady Annie copper mine near Mount Isa in northern Queensland after China Sci-Tech bought it from Cape Lambert Resources last month.But he was caught out by Sykes. He pointed out that when he first became a financial journalist four decades ago one of the first stories he wrote was about the imminent production at the mine.Hegarty could only reply: "It's not only Lady Annie up there. We have Lady Brenda, Lady Maggie and various other ladies ... so there is something going on up there."PROPERTY SKILLSSkilled Group's boss, Greg Hargrave, seems in need of an urgent infusion of cash. He has sold 4 million shares in the engineering concern for $6.36 million to "finance a pre-committed family property transaction".The Melbourne businessman was away for Easter and Skilled's company secretary, Tim Paine, could not confirm what the money would be going towards, but it is less than four months since Hargrave bought a shack for about $7.5 million at Wategos Beach near Byron Bay.Hargrave seems keen on fine-tuning his real estate skills. In July last year he sold his Sydney pad on top of the waterfront Oceana building at Elizabeth Bay for just under $3 million, slightly less than what he paid Kiwi corporate raider Ron Brierley for it five years earlier.Skilled was keen, however, to point out that Hargrave still has a 30 per cent stake in the company.Got a tip? 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