Billionaires Buying Islands Off Australia Find Perilous Paradise

Billionaire William Han perches at the stern of Silver Fox II, his 20-meter powerboat, as it weaves through the kaleidoscopic coral wonderland that is Australias Great Barrier Reef.

In these pristine tropical waters in 1954, then-27-year-old Queen Elizabeth II and her consort, Prince Philip, escaped official duties to swim and spearfish during a six-month post-coronation world tour. Sixty years on, the secluded headland off which Their Highnesses frolicked is part of Hans kingdom, Bloomberg Pursuits will report in its Spring 2014 issue. Welcome to my island! he says, leaping onto a wooden jetty leading to a sandy, palm-fringed shore.

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After paying A$12 million ($10.9 million) for lovely Lindeman in 2012, the Chinese-Australian entrepreneur plans to spend more than A$200 million building a luxury resort on the 8-square-kilometer (3-square-mile) island, while keeping a prime secluded site for his own vacation retreat. When you first see the Great Barrier Reef, it blows your breath, he says in cheerfully fractured English. Buying Lindeman was a bargain. It took me 10 minutes to make up my mind.

How much of a bargain is a source of debate within the cloistered world of private-island sales. Although the Great Barrier Reef is renowned as one of the planets most beautiful and precious places, it has a perilous history. Over the past 80 years, investors have poured billions into resorts here, only to discover that the reef can be as treacherous for them as it was in 1770 for British explorer James Cook, whose HMS Endeavour ran aground near a spot he aptly named Cape Tribulation.

In the past three years alone, four of the most iconic Great Barrier Reef islands, including Lindeman, have been sold for a total of A$25 million -- a fraction of their former valuations. Today, the most prominent property agents specializing in private islands are divided over whether the Great Barrier Reef market has finally bottomed out.

These properties sold for pennies on the dollar, and we will see an upswing, says Chris Krolow, chief executive officer of Toronto-based Private Islands Inc. Thats not a view shared by Farhad Vladi, the Hamburg-based founder of Vladi Private Islands GmbH, who says Great Barrier Reef sales reflect a global trend downward, as evidenced by Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allens December sale of his Washington state island for $8 million -- a third of its original asking price. In the past, the market was artificially inflated by greedy real estate agents and overly romantic buyers, Vladi says. Only now, when were seeing forced sales, is the true value revealed. I think prices will continue to go down.

If ever a smart entrepreneur could make money while pursuing the idyllic island dream, it should be here, on Australias foremost natural wonder. Stretching 2,300 kilometers (1,430 miles) down the countrys northeast coast, this labyrinth of 3,500 shoals, atolls, cays and coral-fringed continental islands is often described as the largest living structure on Earth.

Apart from the dazzling coral formations built from the skeletons of tiny sea creatures called coral polyps, the reef supports some 5,000 other species, from majestic, 40-ton humpback whales to the colorful, comical clown fish that inspired the 2003 Walt Disney blockbuster Finding Nemo.

Each year, 2 million visitors, from billionaires to backpackers, flock here. (In 2011, Oprah Winfrey even showed up with 100 members of her studio audience in tow.) They dive its depths and snorkel its shallows. They ogle it from the air in light planes and skim its surface aboard sailboats and megayachts. The game fishers among them engage in titanic, Hemingway-esque struggles with black marlin that can weigh 450 kilograms (990 pounds). And some decide that the reef is just so special they must own a piece of it.