- Todd Scott is selling his Fiji mansion for over NZ$4m as he plans to return home.
- The Scotts embraced life in Fiji, establishing the Fiji Grow Together initiative to support local communities.
- Scott is returning to Auckland to focus on new business ventures, including New Media Solutions.
Media boss Todd Scott is selling his luxury Fiji mansion for just over NZ$4 million as he prepares to quit the islands and return home.
Start your property search
The owner of the NBR news website, who shifted to Fiji with his wife Jackie four years ago, told OneRoof the four-bedroom house on Naisoso Island was one of the country’s standout properties.
The trophy home, which locals dub the Opera House, due to its resemblance to the iconic Sydney structure, caught his wife’s eye while they were on the hunt for a new base.
The Scotts moved to Fiji in 2021 and have made an effort to give to the community they have made their home. Photo / Norrie Montgomery
The property is dubbed the Opera House, because of its similarity to the iconic Sydney building. Photo / Supplied
“The ‘Opera House’ stood out to her. It’s bright and she really loves natural light. It had [been] empty for 18 months, fully furnished. The developer had it on the rental market for $16,000 a month,” Scott told OneRoof.
The Scotts bought the property in August 2021. He declined to say what the couple paid but noted that the developer had provided the financing to get the deal done.
The concrete and glass structure, which sits on a 1600sqm-plus site, is one of 122 lots in a gated community and boasts views of the river and the Sleeping Giant mountain range. It comes with a swimming pool, a cabana, jetty, and (Todd’s favourite feature) manicured gardens.
Discover more:
- Jason Statham's Kiwi crib snapped up in $56m mansion swap
- Max Key's epic renovation: 'My mum and I designed the whole thing'
- Netflix star’s secret mission to buy her grandparents’ home
“The private pontoon is stunning. You have seamless access to the sea. Denarau is just 12 minutes by boat, Mamanuca Islands are approximately 40 minutes. It’s an exceptional location. The fishing here is truly exceptional,” Scott told OneRoof.
The couple had been digital nomads since March 2020 after selling their Auckland family home for $5.15m. They spent a year running NBR from their tricked-out campervan (Todd reckons by the time Jackie finished decorating it, the van was worth about $340,000) before deciding to head to Fiji, where they once owned a holiday home.
“The plan was that we were going to go wherever we could get good Wi-Fi,” Scott said. Fiji was special for other reasons. Scott said that he and Jackie had a longstanding New Year’s Eve ritual, where they would have “these deep and meaningful conversations in the pool”.
The property has a price tag of just over NZ$4m. Photo / Supplied
The conversation would always circle back to the following: “How do we get ourselves into a position where we own a business we could run from Fiji? That was before I even started working for NBR.”
Scott said he originally planned to return home to New Zealand after one year, but he extended his stay in Fiji an extra three years. “I thought, ‘This is just magnificent’. We were very comfortable about how the [NBR] was doing, and us working remotely had no effect on the business,” he said.
Scott said the couple fully embraced life in Fiji and pitched in to help their local community when the Covid infection rate started to climb and shut down much of the country.
Scott at the property. The couple have successfully run the NBR from Fiji but are now returning home to New Zealand. Photo / Supplied
Luxury features include a jetty and a pool. Photo / Supplied
They established Fiji Grow Together, an initiative funded by themselves and other Kiwis, to support local villages that relied on the tourist dollar.
Scott said he set up chicken hatcheries, a piggery, and vegetable gardens while Jackie helped local schools.
Scott said the couple were now heading back to Auckland to super-charge their new business ventures. “I need a new challenge, and I’ve got a couple of exciting personal projects,” Scott said. His new company, New Media Solutions, which launched late last year, is preparing to advise two major media clients, while Jackie, as NBR publisher, is taking the lead on their joint venture Fourth Estate Holdings.
“I’m only 54 and it’s a hell of a long time to be doing the same job, but I’m really proud of what I’ve created and with my team,” Scott said. He took the reins of NBR - home of the Rich List - after the previous owner, Barry Colman, sold his share in 2012. He installed the country’s first media paywall in 2009, shut down the print publication in 2020, and converted nearly all of his subscribers to digital.
There have been tough times, though. Scott, who calls himself “an open book”, said that the much-publicised sale of his family home in 2019 was “out of necessity”.
Colman had financed Scott’s purchase of the NBR, and Scott sensed in 2019 that Colman “was uncomfortable with the lifestyle that I was living, given how much was owed on the business”.
He told OneRoof that when he bought NBR, his personal debt was $14m. “I didn’t lose any sleep over that. To be perfectly honest with you, I was quite delirious about the fact that I could actually accumulate that level of debt at that age. I was quite chuffed,” he said.
Scott’s listing isn’t the only NBR-related home for sale. Colman is also selling his home, a multimillion-dollar Auckland waterfront estate in Glendowie. Colman and his wife Kati told OneRoof last year they were expecting around $18m for their mansion. It is on the market for sale with New Zealand Sotheby’s International Realty agent Greg Dennerly.
