News chief Robert Thomson buys in Point Piper

Robert Thomson, the man at the helm of Rupert Murdoch’s global media empire, and his wife Wang Ping have bought into Point Piper, snapping up an art deco spread on Wolseley Road for just shy of $4.7 million.

Alas for News’ tabloid troops the purchase is not likely to herald a return to Sydney for the New York-based couple, but rather an investment pad for the media chief.

Exchange on the art deco residence came just two weeks after Thomson was handed a cash bonus of “not less than $US4 million” for next financial year and his tenure as chief executive extended until the end of the 2019 financial year.

Robert Thomson (right), next to Rupert Murdoch. Photo: Simon O’Dwyer

Thomson and Wang – who live on Manhattan’s Sixth Avenue with their two sons Luke and Jack – are already Sydney property investors, having spent $3.8 million in 2010 for a new four-bedroom townhouse in Paddington and which was recently leased for $2600 a week.

The couple’s Point Piper apartment was previously owned by the wealthy Tay family, billed by Forbes as Singapore’s 25th richest.

Vanessa Tay, the granddaughter of family patriarch Tay Tee Peng, and her lawyer husband Alex Ding had listed the Wolseley Road property with McGrath’s Will Manning earlier this year.

Robert Thomson’s new investment property in Point Piper.

Tay and Ding have not moved far, having renovated their nearby home on Wentworth Street they bought in 2012 for $4.25 million.

Will Manning declined to comment on the rumoured purchase by Thomson, but recent whispers of the media boss’s purchase were confirmed earlier this week  when the couple took possession of their new digs.