South Australian pub baron Elli Cakar fights winding up application for Living Australia

A South Australian pub baron is defending a Federal Court bid to close one of his companies — which is also being sued over allegedly failing to pay a $25,000 bill.

Living Australia director Elli Cakar. Picture: LinkedIn

• Glenelg Pier Hotel events go ahead despite liquidation
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A South Australian hotel baron is defending a Federal Court bid to close one of his companies, which is also being sued over allegedly failing to pay a $25,000 glazing bill.

Elli Cakar, who operates venues including The Pier Hotel, the rebranded Royal Terrace Hotel, Propaganda club and The Anchorage hotel at Victor Harbor, says he is taking “head on” a claim brought by Adelaide businessman Phil Ransome to wind up his development company Living Australia.

Mr Ransome lodged action after he claimed Mr Cakar had failed to pay a $24,995 bill for consultancy services billed between November 29, 2017 and May 2, 2019.

The Adelaide Magistrates Court awarded Mr Ransome a summary judgment for the claim in November and Magistrate Alison Adair this month refused Mr Cakar’s bid to have the Judgement set aside.

She rejected Mr Cakar’s evidence that he had agreed to provide Mr Ransome with rent free office space at his Unley headquarters in exchange for the consultancy services.

Brad Hoppo of Seaton Glass. Picture: Naomi Jellicoe

Mr Cakar said his lawyer Greg Griffin would be lodging a Supreme Court appeal against Ms Adair’s ruling.

Mr Griffin said that if the Supreme Court appeal is upheld that it would be his submission to the Federal Court that the winding up application be dismissed.

Mr Cakar said Mr Ransome had rejected an offer of $30,000 to settle the matter.

He said his company was solvent and that Mr Ransome was attempting to publicly discredit his reputation by contacting the media.

“There is nothing wrong with Living Australia,” he said. “I’ve got nothing to hide and I’m going to give him nothing.

“All I’m trying to do is run a business and get ahead, we employ 130-150 people, everyone gets paid and we have a couple of big projects in the work.”

Living Australia is proposing to build a $50 million homemaker centre at Seaford Meadows.

Mr Ransome said he did reject the $30,000 offer because it contained conditions that he would not accept.

Seaton Glass is suing Living Australia in the Port Adelaide Magistrates Court for the alleged failure to pay $25,000 for work at The Pier Hotel and the Brougham Adelaide at North Adelaide.

Seaton Glass director Brad Hoppo said the last payment he received was last August.

‘”That was a high-end job, we are only a small business most of our jobs are $2000 to $5000,” he said.

“We shut down at Christmas time and we had a lot of holiday pay to fork out, it really stung us.

“We rang him asked him if there was any issue with the job and he replied it was all good.

“The last conversation I had with him was early January and I said you have got until Friday to pay or we’re going to lodge with the courts and that’s what we did and we never heard back from him.”

Mr Cakar said he had paid for the work at Brougham Adelaide and was in a dispute with the company over the quality of the work conducted at The Pier Hotel.

“They won’t respond or fix anything,” he said.