Business Confidential: Your way into the boardroom

JUST as Pacific Fair has begun unveiling drawcard stores, another major southeast Queensland retailer is about to start work on a multimillion-dollar redevelopment.

Australia Fair.

WHAT goes on behind the closed doors of Queensland’s biggest boardrooms? Our insiders are here to spill the beans on all that’s happening in the world of business and property.

BATTLE FIELD

THE shopping centres war is heating up on the Gold Coast.

Just as Pacific Fair has begun unveiling a number of draw card stores including Sephora, Australia Fair, owned by YFG Shopping Centres announced they are about to start work on their own multi-million dollar redevelopment next month.

HEARTACHE: Pacific Fair boom-gate tragedy

To try and keep customers in Southport rather than Surfers Paradise, Australia Fair is upgrading its dining precinct, shops and a renovation of Coles supermarket.

Let’s hope they have learned lessons from Westfield Chermside and Indooroopilly Shopping Centre and allow plenty of parking during the changes.

Westfield Chermside are still copping a fair bit of heat via social media for parking woes during their revamp constructions.

SHOW US THE MONEY

GUVERA has long been struggling to pay off creditors, so eyes were on the embattled Gold Coast-based music streaming service to check if money would flow for a first payment to staff who recently lost jobs and were owed leave and redundancy payments.

The good news is that first payment of hundreds of thousand dollars had arrived on Monday.

The axed staff had been employed by Guv Services, a subsidiary of Guvera. The head company had put Guv Services and another subsidiary Guvera Australia into administration in June this year.

Guv Services administrator Deloitte confirmed the first payment had landed.

There’s still more than $750,000 in superannuation payments due by the end of this month. Then there’s payments over the next 12 months to unsecured creditors – the biggest one is the Australian taxpayer with the Australian Taxation Office owed $1.9 million and only getting back 6.8c in the dollar.

In the best case scenario, other unsecured creditors of Guvera Australia have agreed to get back $1.9 million of $7.7 million they are owed. The payments are due over 12 months.

NEVER SURRENDER

SPEAKING of Guvera, which no longer offers its music service in Australia, the company still sounds optimistic.

Guvera chief executive Claes Loberg, with head of music Philip Quartararo and chairman Darren Herft.

In a shareholder update to investors last week, Guvera’s interim and tattooed chief executive Claes Loberg basically hit out at the media and then argued the company was improving the business as a way for brands to get a long time of engagement with customers.

He showed pictures of his teams in Australia, Jakarta and Mumbai “joining me in fighting to grow this business and finish the journey we started”.

Just to clarify: that journey started almost eight years ago and has raised more than $185 million from investors.

Then this week, fund-raising outfit Amma Private Equity, chaired by Guvera director Darren Herft, sent another encouraging email in which people were told Guvera had a solid base of 7 million users in India.

Sounds impressive!

But, as The Courier-Mail reported this month, leaked Guvera board papers had stated in April that of 7 million Indian members on Guvera there were only 89,617 unique active users.

Guvera did not comment on those numbers when asked.

MORE DELAYS

Former Billabong boss Matthew Perrin.

JUDGEMENT day for allegations of fraud against fallen Gold Coast richlister Matthew Perrin has been a long time coming, and it keeps getting longer.

Perrin, a former chief executive of surf-gear outfit Billabong and a BRW Young Rich lister back in the day, was first charged in 2012 around an allegation of fraud involving a multi-million dollar loan and security purportedly granted by Mr Perrin’s former wife Nicole.

He was committed to District Court trial in 2014 and sought legal aid to defend the matter in 2015.

Things were to get tested in court trial last month but now the matter has again been delayed until December 12 this year.

WORLD RECORD ATTEMPT

Matthew Eckford, pictured here running 100km around Hutchins Oval to raise funds for the Children's Hospitals Foundation Australia, will now try to break a Guiness World Record for distance run on a treadmill in 24 hours.

BRISBANE commercial property’s marathon man — Matthew Eckford — is set to jump on the treadmill in a bid to break a world record.

On Saturday, September 3 the CBRE industrial operative will attempt to get a new Guinness World Record distance for a male running on a treadmill for 24 hours.

The current record sits at 260.4km and the former Chase Commercial director reckons it will be quite the “journey”.

The entire 24 hours treadmill-athon will be live streamed here and there will also be live updates and pictures on Mr Eckford’s Facebook page.

NEW START

Paul Dugan, formerly of Chase Commercial, has started his own commercial agency. Picture: Darren England.

SPEAKING of former Chase Commercial directors, Paul Dugan is also on the move and has established his own commercial agency.

Dugan & Co Property has an office in Newstead.

RUM FUN

Picture supplied by Bundaberg Distilling Company.

YOU can now get sauced in style as Bundaberg Distilling Company opens its doors to its new $8.5 million upgraded visitor experience.

The 127-year-old company, which owns Bundaberg Rum, is hoping to turn their facility into a “must do” for tourists in the region.

In addition to their “famous distillery tour” they are adding two new experiences, which every rum lover is sure to get a kick out of.

One is a self-guided museum tour of their six 75,000L oak vats which have been emptied and rebuilt allowing visitors to walk through and smell the aroma of 127 years of rum making.

There’s also a blend-your-own-rum tour where you can craft your own personalised Bundaberg rum from a selection of rums that haven’t been released to the general public.