Onn Mahmud and Australia’s Most Expensive Penthouse!
Sarawak Report
A breath-taking duplex penthouse with spectacular views in a top Sydney location. The press leaped on the story when this apartment sold for a record Aus$20 million in 2008. But who was the ‘undisclosed prominent businessman’ who had been able to afford Australia’s most expensive flat and who had sold it? What we can be certain of is that the deal involved a certain ‘prominent’ family from Sarawak, more particularly Onn Mahmud, the brother of the Chief Minister.
We know that Onn was involved in the development or purchase of what is known as Ten Wylde Street, located in the prime Sydney harbour location Potts Point, because of the evidence that was brought out in a court case some months before the story broke. Onn was being sued for millions of dollars by a consultant who included in the bill his fees for the “development and management” of Ten Wylde Street.
The court case and resulting publicity came at a very difficult moment for Onn, because attention was at the same time being drawn to his vast and unaccountable wealth by the Japanese newspapers, who were following up a prosecution by their own tax authorities against local shipping cartels. In 2007 the story was coming out that shipping companies had been paying un-declared timber kickbacks to a mystery company in Hong Kong that was plainly linked to Onn Mahmud.
Onn has a base in Sydney and had developed a number of business interests in the name of Kesuma Holdings, a company involving himself and his wife, son and daughter, however this was to shortly close down in 2009.