The suburbs Australia’s top investment bankers live

Richard Wagner, Morgan Stanley’s local head, and his family bought a secluded, four-bedroom Bellevue Hill estate for about $12.3 million in 2009. Rothschild’s local chief executive, Marshall Baillieu, is also in the same suburb, buying a mansion for roughly $21 million in 2018.

Another well-known rainmaker, Luminis Partners’ co-chairman Ron Malek, also lived on Bellevue Hill’s Bulkara Road, before selling the David Phillips-designed home for about $16 million in 2020, CoreLogic data showed. Malek and his wife Michelle also snapped up a waterfront property, which they refurbished, on Coolong Road in Vaucluse for about $20 million in 2014.

“[Bankers] are the buy-and-hold type looking for capital growth. They want stability for their families, proximity to schools and the city,” Cohen says.

The ‘golden triangle’

While Sydney’s buzzing eastern suburbs are a reliable hotbed of activity for property moguls, bankers equally crave the tranquility of the north shore, where large, family-friendly estates are aplenty, without the tourist hubbub of Bondi or Coogee.

“Mosman is definitely an area where bankers end up. It is a beautiful suburb with natural bushland and beaches. And you get a lot more bang for your buck there than you would in the eastern suburbs,” says Stephen Smith, a joint principal at SydneySlice, a buyers agency based in Paddington.

He points out that Mosman, like Bellevue Hill, is near prestigious north shore schools such as Shore and Wenona.

Mosman, with his Smith & Cabban-built homes, stands in stark contrast to the art deco styling of Potts Point or the high-rise apartments scattered along the eastern, and inner-city, suburbs. And Smith says Mosman has sought to keep that old-world charm. “A lot of these original homes were built in the 1900s, and they have since been renovated. If you drive along Bradleys Head Road, you will see that they’ve kept their character,” he adds.

Some of the country’s most storied investment bankers are peppered throughout Mosman’s so-called “golden triangle” – a tightly held parcel bordered by Burran, Hopetoun and Kirkoswald avenues.

MA Financial’s Pridham broke lower north shore records at the time with a $25 million waterfront trophy home dubbed Hopetoun, while Barrenjoey’s Matthew Grounds has bought and sold properties there, including a five-bedroom home that overlooked Grotto Point.

The former UBS banker is a stone’s throw away from Jefferies’ local boss, Michael Stock, on the tree-lined Kirkoswald Avenue, while Deutsche Bank’s country head Glenn Morgan, MA Financial co-chief executive Julian Biggins and Morgan Stanley’s co-head of investment banking (and real estate expert) Tim Church are all in Mosman.

Nostalgia, too, could be a drawcard for some bankers who were schooled along Sydney’s north shore, and out of loyalty, many want to send their own children to the same schools, Sotheby’s’ Pallier says.

While average property prices in Mosman – about $5.2 million – have not appreciated as much as Point Piper or Bellevue Hill’s roughly $10.3 million average, the north shore does offer room privacy for the typically media-shy bankers who prefer to stay out of the limelight.

SydneySlice’s Smith, himself a former futures and options salesman at Citi and Deutsche, says Mosman’s golden triangle has been home to many of the city’s banking crowd as families are drawn to the nearby sun-seeking spots like Balmoral Beach, or Clifton Gardens and Beauty Point .

“Mosman and Vaucluse share some similarities in that they’re near plenty of beaches and bays, high street shops and there are plenty of kids around,” he says. “A lot of bankers, too, like to remain under the radar. And Mosman, you find, is a bit more private.”

Beyond the golden triangle, Smith says, bankers head to northern suburbs such as Killara or Gordon, where property prices average between $3.3 million and $3.7 million. Barrenjoey’s co-executive chairman, Guy Fowler, and Goldman Sachs’ local chief Simon Rothery both live in Killara, while MA Financial’s co-chief executive Chris Wyke is nearby in Wollstonecraft.