One could easily get the impression that Auckland investor Tim Edney is just as happy collecting vintage cars as he is hoovering up multimillion dollar properties.
A familiar face at Pennsylvania’s annual Hershey Swap Meet, the world’s largest old-car flea market, Edney owns rare vehicles like the 1917 14.5-litre Le France and 1912 Minerva. And he also has some vintage real estate in a property portfolio estimated to be worth at least $200 million.
Industrial properties figure prominently and by far the most valuable single asset is a 3.5ha warehouse in Penrose leased to Hansells and valued at $56m. There is also a $16m warehouse in Penrose and two $11m warehouses in Onehunga and Avondale.
Awaiting development is 5.8ha of land acquired from the Auckland Racing Club in 2014 on a 125-year lease that reputedly cost $42m. The site is still awaiting resource consent but planners have made representations to rezone the land for a retirement village with 430 one-, two- and three-bedroom units.
One of Edney’s more intriguing property plays was his involvement in the March 2016 sale of the University of Auckland’s 12ha Tamaki campus to Tamaki Village Ltd for $80m. Identified by media as the ‘buyer’ by virtue of his 74% stake in TVL, Edney resigned from the company four months later and transferred his shareholding to his Chinese partners, Shundi Group Investment Ltd, which now owns the campus in partnership with another Chinese entity.
The Chinese partnership appears to be a fruitful one. In 2014, another Shundi company outlaid $106m for four adjacent properties covering an entire block in downtown Auckland which Edney had aggregated over the years and where he had plans to build a $200m office tower. In its place, Shundi is now building a 52-storey residential skyscraper.
Outside Auckland, Edney owns a mix of properties including vineyards in the Gibbston Valley, a handful of residential properties in Queenstown and almost 6000ha of pastoral land in the surrounding Lakes District. Known for having deep pockets, he also stumped up a $36m mortgage to Sanctuary Developments for the $200m conversion of Fonterra’s old headquarters into luxury apartments.
In 2016, Tim and his wife Cathie donated $250,000 to the University of Auckland’s Liggins Institute for ground-breaking “gut bugs” research to help identify the causes of teenage obesity. And when he’s not driving some of his large and extremely valuable collection of vintage cars, Edney keeps busy as president of the Penrose Rotary Club where he’s known to host the occasional BBQ for members at his Epsom home.
Photo: Presspix