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Saturday, December 13, 2014

Sydney Mysterious Property Owners: Susan and Isaac Wakil




Susan and Isaac Wakil at a gala night at the Opera House.


Susan and Isaac Wakil at a gala night at the Opera House.

The Wakils, owners of many of Sydney's mysterious derelict buildings in Pyrmont and the CBD, have begun selling off their vast property portfolio with plans to set up a major charitable foundation. The off-market sell-off has already raised $200 million with more properties, some vacant since the 1970s, under negotiation. 
Mrs Wakil who was born in the then Romanian province of Bessarabia in 1932, told the Herald in 1961 she still remembered her father being dragged to a Siberian gulag for being a capitalist land owner when she was seven. After imprisonment in a Soviet concentration camp, her mother died and the young Susan and her aunt escaped to Australia. Her father migrated here after his release.  Mr Wakil was born in Baghdad in Iraq.
Wakil family property selloff


Tax Commissioner Chris Jordan: Transparency laws, whereby the tax details of about 1600 companies would be published by the Commissioner, may be changed due to fears of kidnappings.
Tax Commissioner Chris Jordan: Transparency laws, whereby the tax details of about 1600 companies would be published by the Commissioner, may be changed due to fears of kidnappings. Photo: Bohdan Warchomij Kidnapping Fears

More than ten agencies among 175 that are being targeted by the federal government to save $500 million over the budget forward estimates have already been scrapped, calling into question the extent of the savings claimed Questions raised about savings from axing agencies