source : the age
ALP donor Felix Ming Ze Lee has raised eyebrows with his latest hire to his high-profile private investment office, recruiting a property valuer who had put a $100 million valuation on a Bellevue Hill estate linked to Lee family interests.
Lee’s recruitment of former prestige property valuer Bader Naaman to head up the real estate and lending arm of his Lee Family Office came to light after the bullish valuation was circulated in private credit circles given already onerous mortgage terms on the property.
Naaman resigned as a valuer from real estate giant CBRE a few months after he undertook the valuation that effectively crowns the rundown property as among the most expensive in Bellevue Hill.
The valuation of the property “Tokay” makes it more expensive on a “per square metre” basis than similarly large-scale properties such as billionaire James Packer’s family estate Cairnton and the nearby $130 million Elaine estate in Point Piper.
This masthead is not suggesting any impropriety or wrongdoing regarding the valuation or Naaman’s appointment.
Felix Lee’s private investment firm was thrust into the spotlight early this year when the 25-year-old appointed former federal treasurer Joe Hockey as chairman. Naaman joins the firm alongside another more recent recruit, Gareth Hammond. The former course superintendent-turned general manager of the Lee family’s Terrey Hills Golf and Country Club was appointed chief operating officer at Lee Family Office earlier this year.
Last month, Lee hosted an unofficial Labor Party fundraiser at his Point Piper mansion by way of a dinner party in honour of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. The revelation, first reported by The Australian Financial Review, included that among the 10 guests were CBA chief executive Matt Comyn, former CBA bank boss David Murray, former ASIC chairman James Shipton, former HSBC chief Antony Shaw and former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews.
Felix Lee established the family office in 2024 in a bid to separate his interests from his billionaire father Phillip Dong Fang Lee, a high-roller gambler who put $2.2 billion through Star City casino and was later embroiled in a tax dispute over a $280 million debt.
In the course of that tax dispute in the Federal Court, a detailed affidavit by a top-ranking tax official alleged that Phillip Lee orchestrated “sham” financial arrangements designed to conceal the true source and character of foreign income, and detailed suspicions that he secretly controlled business and financial interests in China despite earlier vowing to the Australian government that he had sold his Chinese business assets.
The proceeding has since settled with no admission of liability or wrongdoing, but the debt is yet to be repaid in full, and the Tax Office retains a mortgage over the Australian property empire of Phillip Lee and his wife, Xiaobei Shi.
Phillip Lee’s links to the Bellevue Hill property, long known as “Tokay”, were revealed in the Tax Office’s explosive affidavit. The property is held by Phillip Lee’s long-time associate Helena Huiying Hu, with whom he has for decades shared business interests and bank accounts in Australia.
Hu purchased Tokay in late 2001 for $11,088,000, with an $11.9 million mortgage from NAB, of which Hu and Phillip Lee were co-signatories.
Two months after Naaman produced the $100 million valuation, private lender Hygge Investment extended a $65 million mortgage over the property given a loan to Hu Property Investments Pty Ltd, a corporate entity that was briefly owned by Felix Lee before the loan was executed.
The mortgage, which was due to mature a week ago, included interest rates of 9.5 to 18 per cent, equating to between $6 million and $11.7 million in interest repayments alone.
Tokay was built in the 1920s and commands a 3686-square-metre parcel. The $100 million valuation equates to $27,129 per square metre.
High-profile buyer’s agent Simon Cohen, founder of Cohen Handler Buyers Agents, was surprised by the value: “$100 million sounds very optimistic to me.”
The rundown 20-room residence has been left vacant in recent years.
The valuation was issued a year ago, and coincided with a meteoric rise in prices in Bellevue Hill. The median house price in Australia’s most expensive suburb peaked at $11 million in March. A widespread downturn in prices has since led house values in Bellevue Hill to fall 5.76 per cent by July, on Domain data.
Bellevue Hill’s rising values were in part fuelled by the sale of some of the suburb’s largest estates. The trophy estate Leura, on 4300 square metres, set a suburb record of $76 million in 2023, which equated to $17,674 per square metre.
One of the few significantly sized estates of more than 2000 square metres to sell in recent years is a 2624-square-metre property with views to the Opera House and Harbour Bridge that was purchased by billionaire next-door neighbour Gretel Packer late last year. The $59 million sale price equates to $22,484 per square metre.
Billionaire James Packer bought out his family ownership of the Cairnton estate in late 2023 for $105 million, equating to $8192 per square metre for the 1.2 hectare site.
In Point Piper, the 6897-square-metre Elaine estate sold by tech billionaire Scott Farquhar for $130 million equated to $18,848 per square metre.
Smaller blocks sell at a greater rate per square metre, said prestige agent Brad Pillinger.
A case in point was the $61.5 million sale in 2023 of a newly built residence on 1338 square metres to former chief of ACFS Port Logistics Arthur Tzaneros. It equated to $45,964 per square metre.
A source familiar with the Tokay valuation said it was based on comparable sales from nearby trophy homes on smaller blocks, such as the landmark Alcooringa, which set a new suburb high in 2024 at $80 million, equating to $51,282 per square metre.
There was no response on the record to questions from Felix Lee, Bader Naaman, the Lee Family Office or the owner of Tokay, Helena Huiying Hu.
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Lucy Macken is an investigative reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X or email.
