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One of Melbourne’s richest and most prestigious schools, Scotch College, is in exclusive, advanced talks to buy Vision Australia’s sought-after head office in Kooyong for about $60 million.
A source close to the negotiations, but unauthorised to speak publicly, told this masthead the elite private school for boys had outbid two rivals to secure a period of exclusive due diligence to buy the 1.64-hectare site on Glenferrie Road, Kooyong, in Melbourne’s inner south-east.
The source said the underbidder to Scotch was its nearby Associated Public Schools of Victoria rival, St Kevin’s College in Toorak, as well as an unnamed property developer. St Kevin’s is believed to have bid between $53 million and $57 million.
The property had previously been contracted for sale for $53 million to the prestigious Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club, which is across the road from the Vision Australia head office. That deal fell through last December when the club withdrew from the process at the end of its 90-day exclusive due diligence period.
A spokesman for Vision Australia confirmed it was dealing with potential buyers of the site.
“Vision Australia has received multiple inquiries relating to the future of our Glenferrie Road site following Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club’s decision not to proceed with their proposed purchase in 2025,” the spokesman said.
“Due to their commercial nature, Vision Australia is unable to provide any further detail relating to those inquiries.”
The 454 Glenferrie Road site in Kooyong, which houses a 4900-square-metre office and cricket ground, is just a short walk up the road to Scotch’s home in Morrison Street, Hawthorn. The site is also near Kooyong train station and is adjacent to extensive Stonnington Council-controlled parkland and playing fields.
Scotch College has a student population of more than 1950 boys, about 160 of whom are boarders, and caters for students from prep to year 12. It is one of Australia’s wealthiest and most prestigious independent educational institutions, with fees for day students in years 9 to 12 more than $45,000 a year. Its alumni have for decades been influential in Australian business, politics, sport and the arts.
Old boys prominent today include AFL chairman Craig Drummond, former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett, Carlton Blues star recruit Jagga Smith, the Kangaroos’ Jy Simpkin, and former ANZ and Woodside chairman Charles Goode.
The healthy state of the school’s balance sheet, and that of its charitable offshoot, the Scotch College Foundation, means the college is well placed to fund the $60 million price tag of its probable big-ticket acquisition.
According to a filing made in June this year to the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission, at the end of the 2025 calendar year the foundation had net assets of $130.5 million. Of that, the fund has almost $100 million in shares in listed companies and trusts.
Its total revenue in the year was $8 million, of which $6.7 million was income from its investments and the balance from donations and bequests.
According to the school’s 2024 annual report, the most recent available, Scotch received almost $9 million in funding from the state and federal governments. Its total income in the year was $87.2 million, $76.2 million of which came from fees.
The source connected to the process said Scotch had in June been named as the exclusive party to undertake due diligence. A 90-day process means a finalised outcome is imminent. A spokesperson for Scotch declined to comment.
The purchase would be the second major expansion for the college in recent years under principal Dr Scott Marsh, who was appointed in December 2022. Scotch is chaired by old boy Hamish Tadgell, who works for boutique investment manager SG Hiscock as a portfolio manager.
In 2023, Scotch College announced the purchase for an undisclosed sum of Fairhaven, a 70-hectare, waterfront property near the coastal town of Mallacoota, which will be the centrepiece of the school’s outdoor education program. The property had been listed for sale for more than $3 million, with the total projected program development cost reported to be more than $100 million.
From 2028, Scotch’s year 9 students will attend a term-long residential program at the new campus, which is designed to rival the likes of Geelong Grammar’s internationally renowned Timbertop program at Merrijig near Mansfield.
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