International fugitive Michael Gu's Seaforth home sold on the quiet to EY partner

The Seaforth home of missing international fugitive Michael Menghong Gu has been sold on the quiet just weeks after his Mosman trophy home was sold off on behalf of mortgagee Credit Suisse for $12 million.

The sale result remains undisclosed by Stone Real Estate’s Maria Cassarino, leaving it to local agents to estimate a sale figure in the $6 million to $7 million range.

The three-level mansion set atop Seaforth Bluff was purchased by Gu’s mother Su Ju Bu in 2015, a week after it was advertised for sale for $5.8 million. Records do not reveal the sale price at the time.

Records reveal the buyer is Seaforth local Kimberley Fisk, whose husband is Ernst & Young partner Ryan Fisk.

Gu’s iProsperity property empire collapsed earlier this year with debts mounting to as much as $350 million.

A few weeks after administrators were appointed, he and his offsider Harry Huang fled Australia in late July after the Department of Home Affairs gave them permission to travel amid the international border closures of the COVID-19 pandemic. Gu’s whereabouts remain unknown.

Gu and his wife “Cherry” Yingzi Xu were residents of their recently sold Mosman home since 2017 when it was purchased for $10 million, however corporate filings indicate the Seaforth residence held in his mother’s name remained his official home address.

The Seaforth property, complete with five bedrooms, multiple living rooms and a swimming pool, was not sold as part of the iProsperity collapse, however there was a caveat on title for outstanding debts owed to Melbourne-based poker player, childcare investor and property developer Hai Bo Chu.

Recent Supreme Court orders extended Mr Chu’s claim to the title beyond a November deadline.

Before the collapse of iProsperity earlier this year Gu was feted in the financial pages as one of the biggest players in the federal government’s Significant Investor Visa program in which wealthy foreigners were granted fast-tracked residency visas.

In more recent years he became almost as well known for his lavish lifestyle, with private jet at his disposal, a Rolls-Royce Wraith and a Lamborghini parked at his designer home, and a reputation as a high-roller gambler at The Star in Sydney and Crown in Melbourne.

However, since his disappearance he has earned the moniker of the “new Christopher Skase” in reference to the late 1980s tycoon who fled Australia when his business empire collapsed and remained a fugitive in Majorca, Spain, until he died in 2001.