Symond’s super selloff
James Symond, far from an Aussie battler, has decided it is time to take a multimilliondollar investment off the table in Main Beach restaurant strip Tedder Ave.
Mr Symond, former Aussie Home Loans chief executive, owns eight of the 10 titles in Main Beach Plaza and his tenants include eateries Shuck, Senza Noma, Main Beach Fish Grotto and Thyme.
The titles cost him $6m between 2018 and 2020.
No reason has been given for the selloff by Mr Symond, who owns apartments in the Silverpoint and Cerulean towers at Main Beach.
Jared Johnson and Lachlan Marshall, of Harcourts Coastal Commercial, are marketing the Symond titles, which are to be auctioned on March 13.
Mr Johnson said on Thursday the titles were the first major Tedder Ave holding put on the market for some time. “The coveted location is historically tightly held and is benefiting from a high-density collection of luxury residential developments in the thriving suburb,” he said. Mr Symond, 51, worked with his uncle, Aussie Home Loans founder John Symond, for 30 years.
He stepped down as chief executive in 2021, four years after the Commonwealth Bank bought full control of the business. Mr Symond owns all but two of the plaza’s titles and his tenancies all are leased, netting $535,000 a year.
Shuck restaurant, which is on the southern corner of the 1012sq m plaza site, has been a tenant for 23 years. The Shuck operators, Scott and Anna Bugden, own a small tenancy at the rear of the restaurant.
The plaza’s street-front retail areas come with exclusiveuse alfresco areas.
The two-level property was built in the 1980s and has a yoga and Pilates studio and offices on its first floor, where tenants include the Drew Group, which is developing twin-tower Main Beach project Lagoon. A majority of the titles were sold to billionaire land developer, the late Nev Pask, by fellow developer Bob Hill for $3.9m in 2001.
Mr Symond bought a majority of the holdings in the wake of Mr Pask’s death in 2018 and later sold one of the titles to the Bugdens.