Techie Robin Khuda's $40m, four-month cash splash on prestige real estate

Tech entrepreneur Robin Khuda keeps ploughing much of his newfound wealth into Sydney’s prime real estate, with almost $40 million worth of real estate purchases since May.

Top of the pile is a $12.5 million house opposite the surf at Palm Beach complete with pool, gymnasium, and media room from Boutique Retreats founder Sioned Rees Thomas.

Records show the off-market sale by LJ Hooker’s Peter Robinson was a decent gain for Rees Thomas, who paid $9.6 million for it a year ago from vintners Tony and Robyn Maxwell, who had commissioned the JPRA-designed residence.

There’s also a Luigi Rosselli-designed residence at Mosman’s Balmoral Slopes Khuda bought this week as an investment that was being marketed by The Agency’s Scott Thornton for $10.5 million on behalf of Miranda Kenavan, wife of lawyer Aaron Kenavan.

Incidentally, the Kenavans have headed to Wahroonga, buying the La Maison Verte mansion for $8 million.

No comment from Thornton on the sale price, but it rounds out more than a handful of purchases in the last four months, with sources saying there is yet more to come. Among those already settled in his company name are a couple of terraces in Paddington for $3.05 million each, a Woollahra house for $4.67 million and the McMahons Point pad of Sir John Key for $6.1 million a few months ago.

And all this before he secures his forever home in Mosman.

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.

Helping to fund it all is hyperscale data centre operator AirTrunk, founded by Khuda, and valued at $3 billion earlier this year by Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets even before we all familiarised ourselves with Zoom.

It’s enough to put the 40-year-old well on his way to a debut on this year’s Financial Review Rich List when it is published later this year with an estimated net worth of $400 million.

Khuda’s investment of his tech industry gains into Sydney’s prestige market is shared by fellow tech industry leader Mike Cannon-Brookes, the co-chief executive and co-founder of software giant Atlassian.

Cannon-Brookes, whose net wealth is estimated at $18 billion, has amassed more than $208 million worth of prime real estate in New South Wales in the past two years held in his name or that of his corporate entities, including the $100 million Point Piper estate Fairwater.