Former QBE boss Pat Regan lists $7 million Point Piper apartment

QBE’s former chief executive Pat Regan and his wife Georgina Koch have put their Point Piper apartment up for auction just two weeks after his shock departure from the insurance giant.

Regan resigned from the top job early this month after a complaint from a female employee led the board to find he had breached the insurer’s code of conduct. His resignation came with a payout of more than $300,000 plus legal entitlements, but without up to $10 million in share rights.

Regan was QBE’s chief financial officer when he and Koch purchased the two-storey apartment for $5.7 million from wire manufacturer John Everett and his wife Sonya in 2014. At the time the couple had recently moved to Sydney from the United Kingdom, where Regan had earlier that year resigned as chief financial officer of British insurer Aviva.

Regan was appointed to QBE’s top job in 2017 following the resignation of former chief executive John Neal, who stepped down after breaching internal codes of conduct for not disclosing his romantic relationship with his PA, Lucy O’Reilly. Neal’s Elizabeth Bay home was sold by his former wife Helen Neal for $7.5 million.

Michael Pallier, of Sotheby’s International, has set a $7 million guide ahead of the scheduled auction date for Regan’s Point Piper apartment.

The two-storey pad spread over 400 square metres includes three bedrooms and a separate home office, formal and informal living areas and panoramic harbour views.

The Arts and Crafts-style mansion was built in 1915 for surgeon Sir Alexander MacCormick. After doing time as a RAAF base and later as a nunnery, it was sold by the Franciscans in 1999 for $12 million to businessman Rodney Adler and his wife Lyndi.

The Adlers sold it in 2003 for $13 million and it was converted into seven apartments by the Byrne Lewis construction group.

The largest apartment in the complex is owned by Chinese queen of soft rock Tian Zhen, who paid $11.65 million in 2016 for the whole-floor spread of John Gleeson, QC, and his wife Denise.

In 2018, Hong Kong-based author Hilda Ying Ehrhardt, wife of businessman Hans Rainer Ehrhardt, paid $8.8 million for the garden apartment of Scotts Honda Motors former owner Paul Scharrer and his wife Pam.

Another garden apartment was bought by insurance broker Anthony Gow-Gates in 2016 for $5.5 million from wealthy pastoralist Leonie Lawson.