Techie Robin Khuda buys Mosman forever home, pays $20m for knock-down

Tech entrepreneur Robin Khuda has been one of the most prized shoppers in Mosman’s high-end market since the COVID-19 pandemic hit Sydney’s shores more than a year ago, snapping up a few investment properties for more than $10 million each, but never quite finding his forever home among the many trophy residences he has inspected.

Until now.

The founder of AirTrunk has bought a Federation mansion on Balmoral Avenue on a vast 1449-square-metre double block with a swimming pool for close to $20 million, and has plans to redevelop the north-facing parcel into his new home.

The residence has long been owned by the Holden family, and last traded in 1978 for $175,000 when sold by local medico Henry Harvey.

The property was expected to hit the market later this year but was sold on the quiet in recent days after it was listed with an out-of-area agent based in the eastern suburbs. Settlement will reveal the exact price.

Khuda’s reputation as one of the most prolific high-end buyers locally has fuelled rumours he has inspected most of the suburb’s trophy homes both on and off the market over the past year, including the Balmoral slopes home of prominent businessman and former Star City boss Neil Gamble, and the Iluka Road mansion of former ANZ head of global markets Steve Bellotti.

Khuda’s purchase takes his property spree of the past year alone to more than $120 million, including a recently purchased coastal retreat in Lennox Head for $7 million and an apartment in Crown Resorts’ Barangaroo tower for $10.7 million.

Khuda’s personal wealth has soared on the back of his hyper-scale data centre operator AirTrunk, thanks in part to the surge in demand for cloud computing fuelled by the pandemic’s need for Zoom meetings.

Early last year, Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets valued the company at $3 billion and bought an 88 per cent stake in it.

Khuda’s property spree first made headlines in June last year when he was revealed as the $6.1 million buyer of a McMahons Point apartment sold by Lady Bronagh Key, the wife of former New Zealand prime minister Sir John Key.

Since then, Khuda has added three terraces in Paddington for a total of more than $9 million, three properties in Palm Beach for more than $25 million and two run-down blocks of apartments at Manly’s North Steyne for $18.2 million to be redeveloped into luxury apartments.

His Mosman interests include a $10 million Luigi Rosselli-designed house on Plunkett Road and a $13 million in Clifton Gardens purchased by his wife Melea.

It’s certainly an improvement on his property stocks of a little more than a decade ago, when his property portfolio boasted only a one-bedroom flat in Cremorne. Purchased in 2005 for $450,000, it sold in 2009 for $465,000.