Charging the emotional balance sheet

Adrian Burr has been involved in some of the country's most significant property deals of the past decade. Picture / Peter Meecham

Adrian Kenneth Burr
* Born: June 8, 1943.
* Owns properties with associates worth more than $1 billion, including CBD waterfront, forestry, parking and suburban holdings.
* Director, Viaduct Harbour Holdings, which paid $85 million for 35ha of downtown Auckland waterfront in the 1990s.
* Director, Metro Parking, with extensive interests including Viaduct Carparking Building and 800 Princes Wharf carparks.
* Director, Kiwi Forests Group which paid $725 million for 100,000ha of forests two years ago.
* Director, Tram Lease, which owns large tracts of former railway land around Newmarket.
* Offices: Level five, 16 Viaduct Harbour Ave.
* Former director, 1980s developer Chase Corp.
* A founding donor of the School for Performing and Creative Arts in Auckland.
* Burr and associate Peter Tatham are keen supporters of the Auckland City Sculpture Trust.
* Burr and Tatham owned the 1998 Melbourne Cup winner Jezabeel.
* Burr appeared on this year's NBR Rich List at $180 million.


Adrian Burr is kicking back these days. The voracious property investor, art enthusiast, thoroughbred owner and one of the country's richest landlords has a new obsession: a forest of old oak trees sheltering a grand farmhouse on the Canterbury plains - about 30 minutes' drive west of Christchurch.

The gravel-voiced Burr has called "time out" in his life, which comes as somewhat of a surprise.

He has been such an influential investor for more than three decades, bursting on to the scene in the early 1980s with Chase, then buying up key Newmarket, CBD waterfront, carparking buildings and later forestry estates.

But after working with allies David Muller, Mark Wyborn, Ross Green and Trevor Farmer on some of the country's most significant property deals of the past decade, Burr wants a break.

Last year, Burr and two close associates - including Auckland art collector and interior designer Peter Tatham - paid more than $3 million for the 100-plus hectare farm on Bangor Rd outside Darfield.

The area is renowned for its exotic trees, historic homesteads, sweeping country estates and howling nor'westers.

Luxury accommodation around him boasts of being "preserved by nostalgia and reminiscent of an era when style and elegance prevailed".

The Bangor property was advertised by former owners Cliff and Biba Baker as being steeped in history and surrounded by magnificent, landscaped gardens.

Burr said he wanted to find a place where he could find peace and quiet.

"In the past few years, I've put a lot of effort into the business and the time has come to balance the books and charge up the emotional bank account," he said, adding he had bought the property for its garden.

"It's an old dump of a two-storey farm house but the most important thing is the oak trees, which need care and attention and arboreal work.

"It's a property that had been largely neglected for a long time.

"It's something for the heart, not the pocketbook - and all the money is flowing one way."

Burr was reluctant to co-operate for this feature saying: "You can write stories but I've got to the point where I'm withdrawing and spending quite a bit of time in the South Island and pulling back from day-to-day activity and am not involved in any development."

Within the next breath, he defines the scope of extensive investments.

"There's been nothing new lately, so we're focused on the Viaduct, working with Landcorp on the forestry, other investments through the ex-Rail portfolio and parking which owns a number of carparking buildings - and that's about it."

That reference takes in property worth $1 billion-plus: Burr's part-ownership of the prime 35ha Viaduct in Auckland, his broad Newmarket land holdings around the railway line, work with Kiwi Forests Group which bought Fletcher Challenge Forests' 100,000ha estate, and growing carparking business.

Property has not always been kind to Burr, but the developer seems to have a knack for surviving the busts and taking full advantage of the booms.

He rarely sells property, preferring leasehold deals.

He first came to prominence in the 1980s as a Chase director and, like former Chase boss Colin Reynolds, stayed in the business during the 1990s when he picked up a swag of real estate for a song.

As the market improved, his asset value grew.

So why not sell?

Burr says the 100,000ha forestry estate purchase was an "inter-generational investment" and the directors all have a long-term view.

However, his interests are not confined to real estate.

He and Tatham are renowned for their philanthropy towards the arts and racing.

The Thoroughbred Association's April newsletter thanked them as the donors who "generously supplied the music and champagne" at Jeanette Broome's 70th birthday party at Te Rapa Racecourse. It said Broome was one of the country's best private thoroughbred breeders, responsible for major winners here, in Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore and England.

At his 60th birthday two years ago, Burr asked people to give donations to Auckland City Sculpture Trust instead of a present.

One year, 2003, was particularly challenging.

He lost a protracted battle with Newmarket cobbler Shoe Sheriff when the Court of Appeal ruled his company, Tram Lease, could not demolish a wall separating the shoe-repair company from the demolished KFC outlet on Broadway.

Peter Croad and his wife, Jocelyn, had claimed the wall's demolition would disrupt their business.

In an earlier High Court case, Justice Peter Salmon said the building could not exist without the wall and that the roof would cave in without its support.

That same year, Burr's Viaduct Harbour Holdings crossed swords with yachting luminary Tony Bouzaid over a 300 per cent ground rent increase on the Auckland waterfront. Bouzaid's family-owned buildings stand on Burr's land where rents had been reviewed on a 21-year term. Bouzaid then said he would rather destroy the buildings than hand them over to his landlords - a confidential agreement was eventually struck.

But that battle highlighted the plight of the marine industry, huddled around the waterfront edge but increasingly squeezed as Burr and his associates pushed ahead with transforming the zone into an office, restaurant and apartment haven.

Former Chase executive Seph Glew, now in Sydney, has nothing but praise for Burr, saying: "Adrian is one of the smartest people I have met and he is one of the world's genuinely nice guys.

"In all things, not just business, his sense of the opportunity and timing is second to none."