Ex-Equititrust boss Mark McIvor secures bullish $6.75 million for Popov-designed Gold Coast home: Title Tattle

Fulton Transport boss Gary Fulton has emerged as the $6.75 million buyer of the Gold Coast home of besieged businessman Mark McIvor.

The freight-traffic operative is based in Kemps Creek, NSW.

The luxury Gold Coast abode of the recently resigned managing director of Equititrust Mark McIvor went to September auction, but did not sell until early January when the price was undisclosed.

It’s a two-storey riverfront home designed by Sydney-based architect Alex Popov on Cronin Island. 

At its auction Stacey McIvor, the wife of merchant banker and property investor Mark McIvor, wept when the five-bedroom riverfront home drew a top bid of $4.55 million.

At the time a disappointed Mark McIvor said the home  had been valued at $6.5 million and that the auction was "a demonstration of a very hard market".

Observers are highly surprised at the strength of the very bullish price stated in the official DERM land registry paperwork obtained by Property Observer.

Adding intrigue, at the time of the sale, the Gold Coast Bulletin indicated "property industry sources say the home has sold to parties well known to the McIvor family."

But the Bulletin was unable to secure any further sales advisory information from the marketing agent Michael Kollosche, of Ray White Broadbeach, who declined to comment to the local newspaper.

It sits on a 1,736-square-metre block with 50-metre frontage onto the Nerang River.

McIvor, now managing director of Landsolve Partners, built the house on the $1 million block, which he bought from a Tokyo couple, Kensuke Haniuda and Nayumi Yoshida, in 1994.

McIvor, who founded the Gold Coast's own merchant bank, Equititrust, in 1993, also owns two other houses on the island. They cost $3.6 million in 2002 and $1.7 million in 2003.

Ray White Broadbeach agent Michael Kollosche had the listing.

Equititrust, which became known for using a Roman voussoir arch as its marketing logo to suggest structural stability, was among the many unlisted mortgage funds to take a battering following the 2008 financial crisis. In April 2011 Equititrust confirmed it had stopped paying income distributions to unit holders in two funds housing more than $300 million worth of assets as it accelerated its debt repayments.