Rich list member Andrew Banks sells mansion for $52 million as property barons eye new developments

Recruitment industry veteran Andrew Banks and his wife Andrea have sold their Sydney mansion for $52 million, in the biggest residential property sale in Sydney since the onset of the GFC.

The mansion, in the exclusive suburb of Point Piper, is known as Villa Veneto and is described by the Sydney Morning Herald as an “Italianate villa”.

The couple, who bought the property in 2001 for $14 million, spent three years and $15 million renovating the five-story property, which includes a 21-person lift, home theatre, art gallery and nine bathrooms.

The buyer has not been named.

Banks is known as one half of recruitment giant Morgan & Banks. He currently runs ASX-listed company Talent2, and was last listed on this year’s BRW Rich 200 in 2009 with a fortune of $151 million (jointly listed with Geoff Morgan).

In other property news, billionaire Harry Triguboff has swooped on the site of a former David Jones store in the Sydney suburb of Parramatta.

Triguboff paid $36.5 million for the site, and is planning a 400-unit development with a retail component.

The billionaire has been on a buying spree of late, paying about $160 million for five sites around Sydney in the last six months.

Another property billionaire, Lang Walker, is also shrugging off any thoughts of a sluggish commercial property sector, and has started work on a $1 billion development in Melbourne’s Docklands precinct that will eventually include four office towers.

Fellow rich list member Cyril Maloney (valued at $395 million earlier this year) is going the other way – he’s selling a two office buildings in Sydney’s Martin Place. The buildings are expected to fetch up to $170 million.