Laser Clinics' Babak Moini buys $22m pad in Crown tower at Barangaroo

Laser Clinics co-founder Babak Moini has bought into Sydney’s trophy-home market, paying $22 million for a north-east-facing apartment in Crown’s One Barangaroo tower.

The 368-square-metre spread on level 41 is downstairs from the $13.5 million apartment of former Rothschild Australian chairman Trevor Rowe, and above the $11.1 million pad of millennial Online Marketing Gurus chief Andrew Roso.

The question for Mosman agents is, does this mean he’ll be selling the $6.5 million house he bought on Balmoral slopes in 2015 soon after Archer Capital took an equity stake in the skincare and botox company?

In 2017, one of the world’s largest investment firms, KKR, bought out the company for more than $600 million, and since then Moini has turned to investing in bricks and mortar across the inner-west, from Newtown to Rozelle.

One of Moini’s projects was a dilapidated warehouse in Rozelle, purchased in 2017 for $3.5 million, and redeveloped into luxury townhouses, of which one was sold for $3.6 million to 26-year-old YouTube gamer Lannan Eacott (aka LazarBeam).

James Packer is yet to make an appearance on the building’s title records, but another buyer who has emerged is Zheng Huang, who paid $23.28 million on level 58. But Huang is not to be confused with China’s third-richest man, Zheng Huang, who until recently was chairman of e-commerce giant Pinduoduo, and who has never purchased real estate in Australia.

WiseTech chief’s wise move

Billionaire Richard White has read the property tea leaves and says it’s time to sell, and that means it’s goodbye to the tenants of his Lane Cove investment mansion, and hello to a marketing campaign by the Belle Property Lane Cove’s Jess Goodman.

The three-level house is yet to hit property portals so the guide is yet to be formalised, but records show the founder of WiseTech Global has been pocketing $2350 a week for the four-bedroom mansion, having purchased it in 2018 for $4.18 million from sports administrator Brian Thorburn and his wife Ally.

It’s not quite the rock’n’roll investment you’d expect from the former AC/DC guitar repairer, but it certainly sits in the shade of his own home, the historic Victoria House in Bexley, which has been consolidated with a slew of surrounding houses to command more than 3700 square metres.

Designers set Glebe record

Acclaimed interior designers Thomas Hamel and his partner George Massar are rumoured to be the buyers behind an apartment record  in Glebe atop the Pavilions on the Bay complex.

The couple paid about $5.4 million for the split-level penthouse through Mark Gavagna, of City to Surf Property, on behalf of Swell Trading’s Jacky Cheung, who bought it five years ago for $4.05 million.

Hamel is currently based in The Residences overlooking Hyde Park, and sold his former apartment in the 19th-century converted wool store Broughton House in the CBD for $2.8 million in 2015 to financier Simon Mordant.

The interiors guru also owns a getaway south of Sydney in Otford purchased in 2015 for $2.9 million from former premier Nick Greiner and his ex-wife, former Sydney lord mayor Kathryn Greiner.

AstraZeneca CEO leaves Lavender Bay

AstraZeneca chief executive Pascal Soriot has followed up his recent $8 million purchase in Mosman by listing his Lavender Bay home.

This is a sandstone-fronted semi, privately set above a three-car garage with five bedrooms and a central courtyard, that last traded in 2013 for $3.5 million.

There was no response from the agent to queries about the asking price, but it is scheduled to go under the hammer on September 4.

Kangaroo Valley feels the hype

Danny and Cindy Gilbert, founders of the footwear chain Hype DC, have sold their Kangaroo Valley escape Camp David after almost a year on the market.

Sources say Belle Property Berry’s Kiralee White secured more than $4.3 million for the 8000 square metre property on Tanners Creek with tennis court and swimming pool.

The Gilberts, who sold Hype DC in 2016 for $100 million, owned the 8000 square metre property a decade before they sold, having bought it for $1.575 million.

Expect to see more of the couple on weekends at Palm Beach where they purchased a Snapperman Beach house for $10.5 million early this year from Ros Short, matriarch of the hotelier family behind the W. Short Group.