AstraZeneca chief Pascal Soriot buys $8m Mosman house amid global vaccine rollout

As Australians grapple with the potentially life-saving virtues of the AstraZeneca vaccine, the international pharmaceutical giant’s chief executive has upgraded his home real estate, buying a house in Mosman for about $8 million.

Pascal Soriot is currently in Europe, according to a company spokeswoman, but that hasn’t stopped his wife from settling this week on a four-bedroom designer house, complete with the usual local must-haves like a cellar, home cinema and gymnasium.

Unsurprisingly, given Soriot’s $27.5 million salary, no finance was required.

The architect-designed house was commissioned by property investor Phil Arnold and his wife Michelle after they bought the property in 2005 for $3.95 million. It was listed with Belle’s Tim Foote in May as the Arnolds plan to spend more time in Queensland.

Soriot, a French-Australian dual citizen who moved to Australia in 1990 and whose children and grandchild now live here, told The Age‘s Stephen Brook in March that, as the chief of AstraZeneca, he encouraged a deal to locally manufacture the vaccine because he wanted to help ensure Australia’s strategic independence.

“I mean, it’s my country. I wanted to make sure that people were well covered here and were protected,” he said at the time.

And to think he is credited with fending off a $US117 billion hostile takeover by Pfizer in 2014.

Soriot has long been a lower north shore local, most recently based in Lavender Bay, where his home was purchased in 2013 for $3.5 million. He recently offloaded a three-bedroom cottage in Cammeray for $2,737,000.

Editor makes news in the Blue Mountains

The editor-in-chief of The Australian, Chris Dore, has bought back into Greater Sydney’s housing market, securing a five-bedroom house in the Blue Mountains for $2.37 million.

“Elle et Lui” was billed in the marketing as one of the area’s “largest and most sophisticated homes taking in escarpment views” during the two years it was on and off the market before it sold earlier this year through Stubbs & Co’s Rowan Stubbs.

Dore has been missing from Sydney’s title records since 2016, when the Double Bay pad he and his former girlfriend, The Australian’s investigations writer Sharri Markson, bought in 2010 for $1.25 million was transferred into her sole ownership.

Markson flicked the two-bedder penthouse on New South Head the following year for $2.25 million.

Twiggy expands Quay Grande holding

Mining billionaire Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest has expanded his holding in the Quay Grande tower at Circular Quay thanks to his mate, high-profile stockbroker Angus Aitken.

Forrest has owned a penthouse in the Quay Grande since 2006 – purchased for almost $6 million – which made him a likely buyer of the adjoining pad when it was listed by heiress Marnie Lewis-Millar last year for $12 million by Sotheby’s James McCowan.

Despite talk from within the building that Twiggy was behind the purchase given plans to consolidate the apartments, it settled in Aitken’s name for a bullish $12,625,000. No finance required.

Not for long. Records show Aitken has quietly transferred ownership “without monetary consideration” to Forrest’s holding company Tattarang. Expect consolidation plans to follow.

Anne Keating offloads Millers Point investment

Businesswoman Anne Keating has long shown a penchant for the apartments of Observatory Tower in Millers Point, not least because she has called it home since she bought her home there more than 20 years ago.

The sister of former prime minister Paul Keating not only shares the building with a who’s who of corporate Sydney, such as billionaire Robert Millner, former Liberal leader Kerry Chikarovski and coal-mining billionaire Chris Ellis, but has also bought and sold a handful of investment apartments in the building over the years, including a one-bedder on level seven bought in August last year for $980,000.

But, less than a year after she bought it, that last remaining investment pad is set to be cashed in through Sotheby’s Jaime Upton with a guide of $1.28 million.

Bar tsar calls time on Redfern

Bar tsar and restaurateur Anton Forte and his artist wife Allie Webb are swapping Redfern for Hunters Hill, where they have bought a $6 million residence on the quiet.

Records show the off-market purchase of a five-bedroom house with a pool through BresicWhitney’s Nicholas McEvoy comes as the Redfern terrace they bought four years ago for $1.88 million is offered for rent for $1100 a week.

Forte founded the Swillhouse Group with Jason Scott in 2008. It now has a slew of top bars and restaurants to its name, including Frankie’s Pizza, Alberto’s Lounge, Shady Pines Saloon and Hubert restaurant.

Blackstone exec takes punt on Whale Beach

James Packer’s Crown Resorts had no sooner rejected an $8 billion takeover bid by Blackstone earlier this year than the US private giant’s local head of real estate, Chris Tynan, turned his attention to getting his weekends sorted.

The Cammeray-based Tynan is heading to Whale Beach, where his wife Nancy Kim has settled on a north-facing weekender for $10.68 million. The sale by LJ Hooker’s Peter Robinson ended 27 years of ownership by the Tosi family, who bought it in 1994 for $900,000.

Meanwhile, Palm Beach landholders Garry and Susan Rothwell should have few objections from their neighbours to their DA to build a new, designer three-level residence at a cost of $1.7 million.

After all, they own most of the neighbouring houses as well, having amassed a parcel of more than 9000 square metres – most recently early this year when they added a fifth house.

The plans for a seven-bedroom house designed by Susan Rothwell Architects, complete with internal lift, rumpus room, home cinema, pool and spa, was lodged earlier this month on a Sunrise Road property purchased in 2015 for $4.32 million with DA approval for demolition.

Southern Highlands lures PAC Capital boss

Clayton Larcombe, the chief investment officer of Financial consultant PAC Capital who has launched Australia’s first e-sports and gaming fund, has settled on an impressive Southern Highlands retreat for $7.4 million.

The European Palladian-style country retreat, with separate manager’s residence, tennis court and fish-stocked dam on 44 hectares, was long owned by the late notable Queen Street antique dealer Grant Roberts, who bought it for $1.45 million in 1999 when it was subdivided from the Milton Park estate by Indonesian hotel tycoon Adrian Zecha.

Larcombe’s holiday home purchase comes as he trades up his Manly penthouse home, selling his penthouse in the waterfront Malibu Court building for $2.5 million after purchasing a $3 million penthouse on Manly’s East Esplanade last year.