The 29-year-old press scion set to make a big imprint on Vaucluse's trophy home market

Alexander Ma is only 29, but when it comes to his property acquisitions he’s doing better than most  of his Gen Y peers.

A year ago, the young property investor paid $26.5 million for a seven-bedroom mansion in Vaucluse. Now, he’s forked out $55 million for two neighbouring houses a few doors away.

And, sources say, they expect the two houses to be demolished after Ma settles on them to make way for two or three separate dwellings on the prime harbour-front site.

Probably helping to fund it all is Ma’s father, the Hong Kong press baron Peter Ching-kwan Ma.

CK Ma, also known on his corporate records as Walter Marr, is a former director of Hong Kong’s media empire Oriental Press Group, of which the flagship newspaper Oriental Daily News was founded by his family in 1969.

In Australia, the family have proven prodigious property investors, going back to 1993 when Ma snr paid about $130 million for the Hilton Hotel from the receivers of the late tycoon Alan Bond. He sold it to the Hilton family in 2000 for about $200 million. 

In more recent years, the family have invested heavily in Double Bay’s commercial market, but independent sources say this is just a fraction of the war chest of investment funds the Ma’s plan to plough into Sydney property.

Already this year records show Ma’s investment vehicle Ama has spent more than $150 million on commercial investments, including a 12-storey tower in the CBD for $90 million, a $14.7 million retail building in Double Bay and a $44.89 million Surry Hills building sold by prominent property developer Michael Teplitsky’s Tepcorp Holdings.

Ma’s latest residential acquisition is Sydney’s second-most expensive property amalgamation, topped only by the almost $80 million paid by Menulog co-founder Leon Kamenev in 2016 for four houses on nearby Coolong Road.

When approached for comment Alexander Ma said: “Let me call you back. I have my hands full right now.” Subsequent calls went unanswered.

Records show the most expensive of the two houses bought for about $31 million is owned by former KPMG Consulting partner Michael Ibrahim.

It is next door to the home of construction boss Peter Comino that sold separately for almost $25 million in an off-market deal negotiated by D’Leanne Lewis, of Laing+Simmons Double Bay.

The Comino family have owned it since 1987 when it was sold for $2.6 million by Margaret Jarrett, widow of formidable Fairfax newspaper boss Rupert “Rags” Henderson.

Settlement will confirm the exact sales prices.

Next door is the double waterfront site of a Peter Stutchbury-designed mansion built by financier Andrew Ipkendanz and sold in 2016 for $47.8 million to Sanity boss Ray Itaoui and his wife Rachel.

Among Ma’s soon-to-be near neighbours is bar baron Justin Hemmes, who owns The Hermitage estate.

Meanwhile, Ma’s first home he owned with his father — a five-bedroom house in Dover Heights — sold in June for $5.25 million.