A former Brisbane liquidator faces charges of embezzlement

A FORMER Brisbane liquidator faces up to 20 years behind bars if convicted of charges he embezzled $800,000.

A Brisbane liquidator faces up to 20 years behind bars if convicted of charges he embezzled $800,000.

A FORMER Brisbane liquidator faces up to 20 years behind bars if convicted of charges he embezzled $800,000.

In a case which has stunned the city’s insolvency sector, ex-PPB Advisory partner David John Leigh appeared in Magistrates Court this week to face three counts of fraud.

ASIC alleges that Leigh, a well-regarded agribusiness specialist, transferred the money from failed entity Neolido Holdings to his private company Peach Pty Ltd on three separate occasions between July and November last year.

It’s claimed he then used the money for his own unspecified purposes.

Leigh and fellow PPB operative Grant Sparks had acted as liquidators of both Neolido Holdings and a related defunct entity since 2010.

The Neolido group, which intended to develop a 1500-lot housing estate at Mango Hill, was wound up five year earlier with debts of about $67 million.

Leigh resigned from PPB in December to take up a job in January as head of restructuring at accounting mob HLB Mann Judd, where he lasted only a month before stepping down and suspending his liquidator’s registration.

PPB applied to the Supreme Court in February to freeze up to $900,000 worth of Leigh’s assets after it alleged that “monies may have been improperly taken’’ from the Neolido account.

Leigh flagged an intention to defend that legal challenge in April but it was discontinued by PPB late last month.

Neither Leigh nor Sparks could be reached for comment yesterday about the ASIC case, which returns to court for a mention November 2.

Meanwhile, ASIC has been forced to appoint replacement liquidators over 16 companies previously overseen by Leigh.

Among these are BDO’s Andrew Fielding and Helen Newman, who are now taking care of the Neolido mess.

STEPPING DOWN

After a 31-year run with the Michael Hill International jewellery group, Phil Taylor (illustrated) said yesterday that he was stepping down as CEO in mid-November as a result of an unspecified “health issue’’.

But City Beat has learned the decision to leave the Brisbane-based retailer followed a diagnosis of prostate cancer.

An 86 per cent plunge in full-year net profit to just $4.6 million, revealed last month as the company struggles to adapt in an extremely challenging retail environment, certainly didn’t help either.

Taylor, a 59-year-old native Kiwi, is now understandably focused on his treatment and recovery, although he will stick around as a consultant for six months to ease the transition for new boss Daniel Bracken.

Taylor joined the company in New Zealand as an accountant in 1987, back when it only had seven shops ahead of its float on the NZX.

That same year he relocated his young family to Brisbane and opened the company’s first four stores in the country.

Today it has grown to more than 300 outlets across Australia, NZ and Canada.

Once settled in Brisbane, Taylor climbed the corporate ladder, ascending to the role of chief financial officer in 2003.

He then stepped up as acting CEO in August 2016 after the departure of longtime chief Mike Parsell.

Following an international search, company chair Emma Hill announced early last year that Taylor would stay in the job and ditched the “acting’’ title.She lavished praise on him yesterday as “outstanding in what has been a period of recalibration and repositioning for the company’’.

Despite the disappointing profit results, Taylor vowed to open 10 new stores this year and “reposition Michael Hill from a traditional retailer to a differentiated omni-channel brand’’.

But that gobbledygook can’t obscure the reality that the company just reported $25.5 million in one-off costs to bail out of the US market and shut most of its ailing Emma and Roe stores.

Even with this whopping setback, Taylor still managed to earn $839,713 in the last financial year, including a cash bonus of $119,407.