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Chinese billionaire snaps up Aussie trophy home for USD50 million


Chinese billionaire snaps up Aussie trophy home for USD50 million

A house that has riven a family apart has been sold

The exclusive suburb of Point Piper in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. byvalet/Shutterstock
The exclusive suburb of Point Piper in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. byvalet/Shutterstock

 
It is Sydney’s most famous trophy house, hosting extravagant soirees and providing lodging for celebrity guests across the decades.

Altona, a mansion in the city’s swanky Point Piper suburb, has come under Chinese ownership in recent years, a trend that is now set to continue with the recent sale of the mansion to a UHNWI Chinese family based in Hunter Hills.

Jiaer Huang, chairman of Chinese paper manufacturing company Shantou Dongfeng Printing, and his family have been identified as the new owners of the Victorian Italianate-style mansion, Domain reported. The Huangs have acquired the house for AUD60 million (USD44.8 million), among other few details revealed to the public.

Son of Huang Bingwen, one of Australia’s 20 richest people, Jiaer is a prominent Liberal Party supporter.

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The Huang family bought the property from Wang Zhijun, who heads the luxury real estate development firm Qingdao Anteisin Group. Wang had purchased the property in 2013 from publisher Deke Miskin and his wife Eve for AUD53 million (USD39.6 million), a record in Sydney at the time.

Altona has been at the centre of a family dispute that involved Wang, who did not have permanent residency in Australia, gaining ownership of the property via a family trust fronted by Ding Xiuzhen, matriarch of a Melbourne-based Chinese family.

“It’s brought nothing but stress and greed to my family,” said her daughter Holly Chang in an interview with Domain. “We all thought it was going to be this lovely house, but it has left me estranged from my son, my brother, my mother, father and my sister.”

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Source: Property Report