Court orders wind-up of Brisbane hospitality’s Thirsty Occasions

The alarm bells were already going off four months ago for a Brisbane hospitality operator, whose trading company has been wound up by court order.

ALARM BELLS

The alarm bells were already going off four months ago.

Brisbane hospitality operator Mic Uebergang revealed in May that he was temporarily shutting his two Teneriffe establishments, Dalgety Public House and the adjacent Meating Room.

He said the closures would only last a week or so while he considered one or more buyout offers.

But, for many observers, that logic didn’t pass the pub test and, sure enough, his trading entity, Thirsty Occasions Pty Ltd, was wound up by court order last week.

Mic Uebergang outside the Dalgety Public House

Two of his other venues, Oxford Gardens at Bulimba and The Florence in Toowoomba, have also ceased trading.

Following raids by Office of Liquor and Gaming inspectors, those two joints were collectively fined $90,000 in July for selling alcohol without a licence.

Uebergang’s company was tipped into liquidation by Jensen Market Supplies, a family-owned distributor of fruit and veg which launched legal action in the Supreme Court in August.

“We achieved what we wanted to achieve,’’ sales manager Kellie Jensen told City Beat yesterday.

Her company, based at the Rocklea Markets, was only trying to recover about $5000 but took legal action after repeatedly getting stiffed by other restaurants trading on the edge.

TOO EARLY TO SAY

Liquidator David Hambleton, from accounting mob Rodgers Reidy, said it was too early to say how much is owing to Thirsty Occasions creditors and attempts to reach Uebergang had proved fruitless so far.

But he did reveal that the tax man has already flagged debts of $224,000 and noted that no business activity statements had been filed for the calendar year.

Other suppliers have also made themselves known, including Quality Food Services chasing $19,000, Yarra Valley Farms Australia seeking $15,500 and WorkCover Queensland trying to claw back an unknown amount.

Mic Uebergang inside Dalgety Public House

A former business partner, wealthy young tech entrepreneur Jordan Grives, is out of pocket for a substantial sum as well. He declined to comment.

Only a month before closing the doors, Uebergang had splashed out on a refurb of Dalgety House after three years of trading in the historic woolstore building at the corner of Macquarie and Florence streets.

Uebergang, who still chairs the Teneriffe Festival, did not return a call seeking comment yesterday.

It’s understood a new operator is poised to start trading in the Dalgety House premises but we couldn’t confirm that with the landlord, a Sydney-based investor who bought the property for $1.9 million in June last year.

SHOT DOWN

Shareholders in embattled Bounty Mining overwhelmingly rejected a $71 million rescue package on Monday that had been strongly backed by the company, which has major assets in Queensland.

Four resolutions to green light the proposed deal with Bounty’s biggest investor, Amaroo Blackdown Investments, were each shot down by margins of just over 80 per cent.

Bounty chairman Rob Stewart told an EGM in Sydney that the humiliating defeat meant the company now either had to strike a deal with Brisbane-based QCoal or tumble into administration.

Brisbane-based mining billionaire Chris Wallin, owner of QCoal.

To avoid the latter, Stewart said he would seek a “tolerance period’’ from creditors who are ready to collect now. They include $43 million owed to Amaroo and another $1.5 million to Glencore.

QCoal, the private outfit run by billionaire former government geologist Chris Wallin, first pitched an $85 recapitalisation scheme in late August that has been repeatedly rejected by Bounty.

As late as last week, the Bounty board dismissed the unsolicited QCoal offer as “incomplete” and “unacceptable’’ when compared with the now-defunct Amaroo option.

But Bounty investors appear to have heeded criticisms that the Amaroo proposal was highly dilutive for shareholders and amounted to a “takeover by stealth’’ without any premium paid.

By contrast, the QCoal scheme does not dilute the holdings of existing shareholders, does not require investor approval and has been endorsed in an independent expert’s report.

Bounty floated in June last year after raising $18 million and it has acquired distressed assets in the Bowen and Laura Basins. But it has been swamped by problems and suffered a $34.4 million net loss in the last financial year.

Brisbane billionaire Chris Wallin and his QCoal Group pitch $85m rescue plan to save Bounty Mining