‘Sell the Navara’: How a $1b fintech founder wound up with $6000 in the bank

A former high-flying fintech entrepreneur who ran a business valued at $1 billion sold his last remaining assets – a Nissan Navara and a membership to The National Golf Club on the Mornington Peninsula worth $70,000 – before being declared bankrupt.

The meagre state of Sargon Capital founder Phillip Kingston’s personal finances were detailed in bankruptcy documents filed this year, leading to questions from his bankruptcy trustee about whether he had squirrelled away millions in bank accounts in Hong Kong.

Sargon Capital’s chief executive Phillip Kingston has been declared bankrupt.Credit: Arsineh Houspian

Kingston – who once rubbed shoulders with Melbourne’s blue bloods, Sydney’s top financiers and Silicon Valley billionaires Peter Thiel and the Winklevoss twins – was declared bankrupt in the Federal Court in late 2023 over a $151 million debt incurred by a Sargon entity from a division of China Taiping, a Chinese state-backed financier.

Kingston’s bankruptcy followed a ruling in the Supreme Court of Victoria that found the 39-year-old personally liable for the $151 million debt.

Sargon, a superannuation services company that counted ex-Crown executive Robert Rankin and former Labor federal minister Stephen Conroy as directors, collapsed in 2020 after China Taiping enforced its debt.

The business had in April 2019 been touted by investment bankers for a potential listing on the Australian Securities Exchange with a valuation of between $1 billion and $1.5 billion.

Court documents show that at the time of his bankruptcy, Kingston owned no real estate or other assets valued at more than $2000. He declared only $6638 in cash in two bank accounts – one in Australia and another in the United Arab Emirates – and a little over $128,000 in superannuation.

The court also heard that Kingston had been working in Ukraine and the UAE, earning $62,000 in 2023 by way of income and benefits including rent-free accommodation.

Nicole Tyson, counsel for Kingston’s trustee in bankruptcy, told the Federal Court last week that Kingston had further bank accounts and, potentially, assets in Hong Kong that required investigations to learn more about his financial position.

The court heard the $151 million provided to the Sargon-associated company by the Chinese financier appeared to have been deposited into one of Kingston’s personal bank accounts in Hong Kong.

“In essence … there have been very significant amounts of money paid into bank accounts in Hong Kong that were the subject of the judgment of Justice [Jim] Delany of the Supreme Court of Victoria,” Tyson said.

“The trustee has been unable to essentially reconcile and trace all the payments in and payments out, and we’re talking about very significant sums of money.”

The Federal Court granted the bankruptcy trustee’s request for judicial assistance from the Hong Kong courts in obtaining access to Kingston’s full banking records for his offshore accounts.

Kingston has long protested the enforcement of the debt and the resultant liquidation of the group. He has also previously said he was assured by Sargon’s financier and advisers that he was not personally liable for the debt.

Kingston did not respond to requests for comment.

Investigations into his financial affairs continue.

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