Daydream Island sold by Vaughan Bullivant to Chinese buyers

Daydream Island sold by Vaughan Bullivant to Chinese buyers
Jonathan ChancellorDecember 7, 2020

The China Capital Investment Group has bought Queensland’s Daydream Island Resort for around $30 million, well below its $65 million asking price in late 2012.

With the low dollar and strong growth in the Chinese inbound market, the resort is the latest sale with Lindeman Island also sold to Chinese buyers, Whitehorse in 2012.

The annual turnover of the resort is estimated at $27 million.

The Australian reported CBRE’s Wayne Bunz and Ray White’s Dan White secured the sale.

The island has a 4.5-star 296-room ­resort built by ­Nature’s Own founder Vaughan Bullivant, who paid $25 million for Daydream in 2000.

The businessman who sold the Nature’s Own vitamin company for $137 million in 1997 spent nearly $50 million on it.

 

Daydream sits among many Whitsunday, Queensland resorts that have suffered from the high Australian dollar and also the cheaper airfares to Asian holiday destinations. 

Bullivant (pictured above) said his resort was profitable in 2012.

“Daydream has always been extremely important to me, and I’ve put many years of my life into making it the beautiful tropical island resort that it is today, as have many staff and my Daydream Island management team,” he said on its 2012 offering.

“But I’m 65 now and looking to at some stage put my feet up and enjoy doing other things in life, including more travel and spending time with my family, which has long been my goal.”

It was Village Roadshow that sold the island in 1999. 

The purchasing syndicate reportedly included Keith Williams and Vaughan Bullivant. Williams was bought out.

Daydream Island is one of seven islands of the Molle Group, a sub-group of the Whitsunday Islands in Queensland, Australia. The island is small, measuring one kilometre in length and 400 metres at its widest point.

 

 

Jonathan Chancellor

Jonathan Chancellor is one of Australia's most respected property journalists, having been at the top of the game since the early 1980s. Jonathan co-founded the property industry website Property Observer and has written for national and international publications.

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