Court battle sheds light on sport star’s Mick Doohan’s extensive business interests
PRIVATE jets, Brad and Ange staying over ... and high-interest loans. Welcome to the other side of a motorcycle legend.
FOR five years no one could touch Mick Doohan as he blitzed the field on the MotoGP circuit.
But today he is in the legal duel of his business life over $7 million in loans involving high-profile Gold Coast ex-bankrupt Matthew Perrin.
Just last week, Doohan began his defence against attempts to claw back $4.1 million from his little-known but lucrative high-interest loans operation.
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Doohan, who during his heyday was raking in a reputed $5 million annually, has more recently provided a lending business to friends and associates that charges up to 60 per cent interest.
But he is now embroiled in court cases involving former Billabong boss Perrin, which threaten to leave him millions of dollars out of pocket.
The lawsuit casts the spotlight on his Gold Coast-based businesses, spanning private jets to loans to property.
Brisbane-born Doohan was the five-time 500CC MotoGP world champion from 1994 to 1998, coming back from a crash that almost resulted in his leg being amputated.
Based in Monaco, he was sponsored by the likes of tobacco giant Rothmans and became friends with Formula One great Michael Schumacher.
Since then he has built a business empire which one former employer, in a 2003 court dispute, said was worth $90 million.
Sources who have done business with Doohan describe him as a savvy.
“(He was) quiet and a listener, to the point that when he spoke you listened because it wasn’t that often,” one said.
Another said: “Mick was astute.”
After retiring in 1999 he plunged himself into property, at one point buying more than $12 million in Queensland real estate.
His Gold Coast home underlines his success: a three-storey mansion with swimming pool and guest house, which also played host to Hollywood stars Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie and family.
Doohan still commands endorsements, including once earning more than $1 million for Honda and fronting for hotted-up Mercedes group AMG.
He also runs Platinum Flight Services from a Gold Coast hangar. It assists flights for the rich, offering five-star catering and 24-hour customs in tandem with Doohan’s Global Jet business, which flies, charters and sells aircraft.
Doohan further co-bankrolled a Las Vegas nightclub called Cathouse, which had a Parisian bordello theme and the tagline: “Voyeurism isn’t just OK, it’s encouraged”.
But it shut after six years, in late 2012.
Far less public is his loan operation, which The Courier-Mail first revealed in 2009.
“I lend people money ... generally short-term loans,” Doohan said, when he appeared as a witness in a court case.
He said loans could fetch 40 per cent interest, and if they ran into trouble could hit 60 per cent.
It was an unadvertised operation only offering one or two loans a year.
Doohan’s loan operation is now engaged in separate court disputes involving the liquidator, Julie Williams of Insolvency and Turnaround Solutions, for a family company of former Billabong boss Perrin.
The liquidator has sued Doohan’s businesses over the $4.1 million loan and $1.3 million in related costs in one case.
The suit claimed in court documents that the Doohan companies got back $4.1 million in January 2009 from the Perrin company despite not being entitled to it.
But in their first defence lodged in Queensland’s Supreme Court, Doohan’s private companies have maintained they were entitled to the payment.
His companies denied the claims that loan and guarantee agreements were not actually given by the relevant Perrin-linked companies.
They also rejected claims that all directors of those Perrin-linked companies had not signed loan agreements.
Doohan’s company is embroiled in separate litigation with the liquidator over another $US3 million loan.
Doohan has declined months of interview requests but welcomed television cameras through his home to talk about his racing days.
“I think I’ve told you that I’m busy,” Doohan he said politely on the phone briefly from Malaysia, where he was attending a sports function.
“I’ll speak to you when I get the chance,” he said, before hanging up.