Engagement Buzz: Shelley Sullivans Ex and Heiress!

Welcome to The Group Chat with Lucy Manly, where Australia's most trusted society insider before it makes the news.

Anthony's rebound engagement 

Well, that didn't take long. The ink had barely dried on Anthony Sullivan's divorce from ex-wife Shelley Sullivan before he proposed to Bushells tea heiress Alisha Oxley.

I'd heard talk of an engagement while knocking back champagne at a society wedding a few weeks ago, but brushed it off. Surely a man with that sort of bank balance wasn't dropping to one knee after a relationship of less than a year?

Well, apparently he was.

Several well-placed sources from the finance crowd have confirmed the engagement, which seems to have been quite hush-hush with no public confirmation on social media.

The loved-up pair are celebrating in suitably understated fashion: island-hopping through Mykonos, cruising the Greek islands aboard a superyacht before making their way along the Amalfi Coast, through Venice and now Capri. As one does. 

Regular readers will remember I broke news of their romance back in February after spotting the pair looking cosy at the Crowded House concert in Bondi Beach. 

At first glance, Alisha bears a resemblance to her predecessor, Shelley, the powerhouse behind MCoBeauty, who .

While some might be tempted to draw comparisons, Alisha is a catch in her own right. Alongside her legal career as a junior solicitor, she hails from Sydney society royalty, with the Bushell family calling the heritage-listed Carthona estate in Darling Point home - which I'm told is quietly up for sale.

Anthony, meanwhile, has hardly been roughing it since the break-up.

He dropped a suburb-record $41 million - in cash - on a newly built waterfront trophy home in Kirribilli, smashing the previous record by more than double.

Chatter in the eastern suburbs suggests he also walked away with a tidy cheque from the MCoBeauty empire about the time he and Shelley went their separate ways after eight years of marriage.

While Anthony and Alisha's engagement is now common knowledge among the society in-crowd (I can already picture the interlocked 'A's at their wedding), I've heard whispers that two details are raising eyebrows.

Deniz is pictured with his ex-wife Pembe prior to their separation