A pair of billionaire brothers from New Zealand has quietly snapped up 16 beachfront Malibu lots destroyed by last year’s fires – dishing out well more than $65 million with plans to put up prefab homes there.
Nick and Mat Mowbray, co-founders of toy and consumer-goods giant Zuru, have plans to deliver factory-built prefab homes manufactured in China, ABC7 reported.
The deals were first reported by realtor.com in August, when the buyers had already dished out $65 million for the first nine properties. The lots were purchased under Zuru Tech Us LLC, the construction division of Zuru, records show.
“For us, we have a research project that focuses on factory-built homes, and we saw an opportunity,” Zuru Tech U.S. operations director Marcel Fontijn told the Real Deal in October.
“If you imagine there being rebuilding efforts on 300 houses that burned down in terms of how many contractors, how many framers [and] how many roofers, where are you going to pack all these people?” Fontijn added. “And that’s where we really saw that we can provide a solution to a problem.”
The homes reportedly use lightweight concrete walls and concrete roofing touted as “fire safe,” made to be assembled on site. They would each be unique in design, and completed in as little as four-to-six weeks, once permits are in hand.
“Our plan was to build one home that was used by the Mowbrays, but after we bought the first lot, we had many public inquiries if we were interested in buying additional lots,” Fontijn told ABC7. The hope is to finish two homes by the end of 2027, and the remaining 14 by 2029, according to the outlet.
Despite the big plans, Malibu hasn’t received any building permit applications or formal development proposals from the brothers, a spokesperson for the city told The Post on Tuesday.
“As with all properties, any future proposals would be subject to the City’s standard review and approval processes in compliance with applicable local and state regulations,” Malibu information officer Matt Myerhoff said.
To date, only 22 building permits have been issued in Malibu after roughly 600 homes were destroyed last January, according to the city. But, Myerhoff said that a total of 488 permits have been issued for repairs, debris removal and other remediation work from the Palisades fire.
The brothers started Zuru in 2003 with their sister, Anna, and the company is responsible for products like Bunch O Balloons, Robo Fish and Mini Brands. Today, the Mowbrays are among New Zealand’s wealthiest residents, with a combined fortune estimated at around NZ$20 billion and Zuru on track for billions in annual revenue.
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The Mowbrays grew up in Cambridge, a rural town in New Zealand, and started experimenting with toy ideas as teenagers. Matt Mowbray, the older of the two, is often described as the visionary, while Nick is seen as the salesman and operator, charged with turning those ideas into a global supply-chain machine.
Zuru did not reply to The Post’s request for comment.
