Two rich list Aussie families have been impacted by the Hilton helicopter crash incident – one owns the aircraft, the other owns the building.
As the Australian Transport Safety Bureau investigates the collision between the Robinson R44 II helicopter and the Double Tree Hilton Building in Cairns – a process with anticipated completion in Q1 2025, subject to change – two Australian families whose properties are directly impacted sit in the wings.
The Morrises and the Bergers, who are accidentally sandwiched between the incident and investigators, have a strong background building up massive real estate empires over several decades.
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Chris Morris on the rooftop of the Ardo Hotel which he built after buying Jupiter’s Casino in Townsville and transforming it into The Ville Resort & Casino. Picture: Evan Morgan
Mr Morris first got into the aviation business seeing it as a convenient way to get his breathtaking Orpheus Island in Queensland.
On one hand is Queensland-based billionaire Chris Morris – co-founder of share registry firm Computershare – who owns Nautilus Aviation, the helicopter firm whose aircraft was involved in the accident in the early hours of Monday morning.
Mr Morris, 76, lives in a penthouse on the beach at the Gold Coast, flies up and down the Queensland coastline to check his estates, fish and unwind – and has a vast chain of businesses spread under four arms: Morris Group, Morris Family Foundation, Morris Technology, and Morris Aviation.
Chris Morris, the owner of the Morris Group and obsessed with the sea, brought a $40m Benetti superyacht to Australia. Picture: Benetti
The Morris family, led by Chris Morris (centre), has extensive business and real estate interests across multiple states, including an aviation arm that runs heli tours out of Cairns via Nautilus. Picture: Morris Group.
He describes it as having “everything from helicopters to pubs to boats and hotels”.
His interest in aviation has seen him “transform Nautilus Aviation from a one-aircraft operation to Australia’s biggest helicopter operators” with bases in North Queensland, the Northern Territory, and in the Torres Strait. They specialise in scenic flights over the Great Barrier Reef and Kakadu, transfers to his luxury tourism properties in North Queensland, commercial and emergency aviation.
He owns the Colonial Leisure Group, and has been known to buy property due to nostalgia like the legendary Portsea Hotel in Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula in the 1990s “where I had my first drink and I think probably half of Victoria’s teenagers had their first drink”.
Poolside at Orpheus Island.
On the deck of an indulgent hideaway at his Pelorus Private Island in North Queensland. Picture: Morris Group
His hospitality arm has The Albert Park Hotel, Half Moon, Lucky Coq, O’Connell’s, Railway Club Hotel, The Vincent Wine Shop, and Julatten Hotel, plus a brewery CBCo Brewing.
He bought the old Townsville Jupiter’s Casino in the mid 2010s, and transformed it into The Ville Resort-Casino, also buying a sister property next door on the breakwater, Ardo – which has 132 rooms and suites, restaurants, an iconic rooftop pool and bar.
His Morris Escapes boutique properties include Mt Mulligan Lodge, Beechmont Estate, Orpheus Island Lodge and the luxe Pelorus Private Island.
There’s also a castle in Dorset, exclusively used for private events and functions. Picture: Morris Group.
“It’s unquestionably the best beach,” is how Mr Morris describes Pelorus Island. “You can swim off the beach about 20 metres and there’s some of the best coral you’ve ever seen. It’s just totally unique and there’s nobody else on the island. It’s pretty special.”
He even owns a castle in Dorset in the UK called Pennsylvania overlooking the coastline to the English Channel used exclusively for private rentals, weddings and corporate hire.
File picture of hotelier Ludvik Berger who bought former Sheraton hotels in Alice Springs and Darwin for $24m as his first Australian purchases.
The property that now houses DoubleTree Hilton Alice Springs was among the first purchases of the Bergers in Australia. Picture: Hilton.
On the other hand is British rich list hotelier family the Bergers, who fought hard to became Australians and drive investment into Queensland and the Northern Territory over more than two decades from the 1990s.
Their international BG Hotels Group has gone on to own four beach hotels in Mallorca and one in Ibiza, Spain, ranging in size from 150 to 500 rooms each.
Spearheaded by Ludvik Berger (who would have been 100 this year) and aided by Lloyd Berger, now 66, they had come to Australia to explore the possibility of investing in hotels in the 1990s.
At the time the tourism industry was “decimated by the 1989 airline pilots dispute and the recession of the early 1990s”.
The Berger family bought the building that now houses DoubleTree Hilton in Cairns in 2004 and signed a management agreement with the Hilton over it. Picture: Hilton.
The Bergers other Cairns property – bought in 2005 – was also part of an agreement with the Hilton for management rights. Picture: Hilton.
Lloyd Berger was a merchant banker with Bankers Trust, focused on corporate finance deals in the oil, gas, chemical, resource, utilities and related industries, when he was roped in to join the family firm in 1991.
The Bergers reportedly bought their first Australian purchases in 1992 – two Sheraton hotels with a price of $24m struck with the Northern Territory government’s hotel arm Darwin International Hotels.
There was almost a decade lull before the hoteliers bought four more hotels in the space of three years, starting with two Holiday Inns in Darwin for $23m in 2003, Holiday Inn Cairns for $18m in 2004 and Hilton Cairns for $32m in 2005, according to information shared by Mr Berger.
Inside DoubleTree Hilton Cairns. Picture: Kristina Puljak
The Bergers picked their hotel properties in prime locations.
The Bergers ended a deal with the Intercontinental Hotel Group to manage the family’s Northern Territory properties on May 1, 2013, entering instead into a multi-unit management agreement with Hilton Worldwide.
Hilton would have the rights of manage six of the Bergers’ Australian hotels – one of which has since been transformed into the Double Tree Hilton on the Cairns waterfront, site of the rooftop incident.
The Bergers have reported other deals since that time, including an umbrella company acquiring the Ibis Styles Canberra hotel in 2013 for $25m, then selling it four years later for $27.5m, and negotiating a management agreement with Accor Hotels. There are also multiple companies they’ve been directors of in the UK since.
Property records still show Berger family Australian-linked companies as holding hotel property ownership, though it’s difficult to get insurers to discuss how costs are divvied up under the type of management arrangement struck with the Hilton.
The iconic Hilton Darwin. Picture: Hilton
A Hilton spokeswoman told The Courier-Mail Tuesday that DoubleTree by Hilton at Cairns would remain closed for some time.
“Due to ongoing investigations and the need for us to ensure that the hotel is completely safe before reopening, we cannot yet provide a definitive reopening date,” the spokeswoman said.
No doubt business interruption cover will kick in for insurers, with the Hilton now processing refunds for all guests who prepaid accommodation.
At the very least there is one certainty – the third billionaire family whose name is on the hotel won’t be drawn into any fallout: Barron Hilton, grandfather of socialite Paris, sold their shares in the hotel chain in 2007 to private equity firm Blackstone.
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