Liquidators move in on companies linked to developers George Cheihk and Con Bassili

Liquidators have moved on multiple companies linked to a colourful pair of Queensland developers, with debts totalling more than $40m - and it’s not their first brush with financial strife.

Liquidators have moved on multiple companies linked to a colourful pair of Queensland developers, with debts totalling more than $40m across their property empire.

The companies are linked to former bankrupts George Cheihk and Con Bassili, the long-time business partners behind Queensland Property Group, also known as QPG, which is based at Ipswich.

At least three current companies linked to the pair are in liquidation or administration – but they’re just the latest in a string of collapsed companies which they have overseen over their chequered corporate history.

Mr Cheihk’s ventures have made regular headlines in the past two decades since he came to Queensland as a Lambo-driving Brisbane River mansion dweller who splashed cash on political campaigns and sporting teams.

His business dealings and friendship with disgraced former Ipswich Mayor Paul Pisasale have also seen him in the crosshairs of the Crime and Corruption Commission, which raided two properties owned his companies in 2017.

The CCC also examined a property sale of a restaurant site owned by Pisasale’s family company to a business of Mr Cheihk’s, with both men denying knowing the other was involved during the sale.

Mr Cheihk was never charged with any offences related to the CCC’s investigations, nor was he found to have engaged in any corrupt conduct.

Pisasale famously fronted a press conference in his pyjamas and robe to resign as Mayor, three weeks after Melbourne Airport sniffer dogs found $50,000 cash in his bag.

Two weeks later Pisasale was in jail and he was ultimately convicted of multiple crimes including fraud, sexual assault and extortion.

There’s no suggestion Mr Cheihk, 56, or Mr Bassili, 55, were involved in the wrongdoing of the former Mayor, who was released on parole in 2022.

Years on from the CCC attention, Mr Cheihk and his business partner are at the centre of a crumbling property empire, with three of their companies in financial strife.

Mr Cheihk has just weeks to make good on a multi million-dollar deal he struck with creditors of his company Queensland Developments Payroll, which went into voluntary administration owing more than $5.4m in June 2024.

The company, of which Mr Bassili is a shareholder, was saved from liquidation last September via a deed of company arrangement which would see creditors receive around 52c for every dollar they’re owed.

Under the deed, Mr Cheihk has until September 19 this year to pay $2m into the company while another of his companies, Chum Street, has to hand over another $500,000.

According to documents filed by the liquidator, Mr Cheihk was to fund the proposal from funds “expected from related parties that own, and are in the process of realising, real property assets”.

However, realising assets may be difficult, with multiple properties owned by related companies subject to caveats lodged by the liquidator of another Cheihk and Bassili company – Bundamba Property Holdings.

Investigations by liquidator Bruce Gleeson of Jones Partners found the Budamba company, described in his report as part of the Queensland Property Group, owed more than $28m when it collapsed on June 18 this year.

It was brought undone by a NSW Supreme Court wind-up over $37,902 in unpaid State Government fines.

Mr Gleeson said he’d arranged for caveats to be placed on three properties owned by the company’s related trust in the Ipswich suburb of Brassall.

All of the properties are in QPG’s High Street Estate subdivision and were still being advertised for sale by QPG as vacant home sites this week.

A third company, Queensland Developments Commissions, has also slipped into administration with administrator Andrew Worrell appointed on July 11.

Mr Worrell’s report said $1.77m was owed to the tax office, with another $150,484 owed to other unsecured creditors.

A deed of company arrangement with creditors has also been proposed for that company.

QPG and its previous iterations have developed housing subdivisions across Ipswich and the outer suburns of Brisbane for more than 20 years.

The pair each have a street named after them in a QPG development at Collingwood Park.

Their Q.L.D. Group – which went into court-ordered liquidation with debts of more than $4.58m in 2010 – was sleeve sponsor of the Brisbane Broncos and North Queensland Cowboys NRL teams from 2005 to 2008.

The companies donated more than $600,000 to both Liberal and Labor political parties in the 2000s.

But the good times went bad and Mr Cheihk was bankrupted over a seven-year-old $200,000 debt in June 2007. The debt was repaid and bankruptcy annulled in January the following year.

He was also banned from managing corporations for two years by the national regulator, partly for failing to pay taxes of businesses he helped manage.

In 2009, he was fined $500 after pleading guilty to assault. In what his lawyer described as a “night of madness”, the District Court heard Mr Cheihk had bought ecstasy and was found with a knife after wresting it off another customer.

Since his bankruptcy, Mr Cheihk has had two other creditors petition’s lodged against him – one by BMW Finance in 2010 and one by lender Aquamore in 2022. Both petitions were dismissed.

Mr Bassili was bankrupt from October 2010 to April 2013, and has a creditor’s petition which was lodged in 2010 and is still recorded as current.

Like Mr Cheihk, he was also petitioned by Aquamore over a debt in 2022 which was dismissed the same year.

With his ban relegated to history, Mr Cheihk is current director and/or shareholder of more than 30 companies, which records show own scores of properties – including a mothballed abattoir at Yamanto near Ipswich.

His company Alchemy (Qld) is also the registered owners of the former Club Metro nightclub, previously known as Switch, in Ipswich’s busy Brisbane St.

Queensland Property Group has continued to operate as a business despite the financial struggles, with Mr Cheihk’s LinkedIn profile describing him as its director and CEO.

The current Queensland Property Groupwebsite was registered using a company formerly called QPG, which was directed by Con Bassili when it was deregistered in 2021.

QPG, which was renamed QLD Property Developments Management, went into liquidation in 2018 and still owed almost $6m as of the last liquidator’s report in 2020.

Mr Cheihk and Mr Bassili have been contacted for comment.

Editor’s Note: A previous version of this story included a photograph of former Scenic Rim mayor John Brent. The caption to the photograph stated that Mr Brent is a former bankrupt. That was incorrect. Mr Brent has not ever been bankrupt. The Courier-Mail apologises to Mr Brent for the error.