The Australian Wild Camel Corporation sued for $1.4 million by property seller Steve Clements alleging a five-month delay in settlement

Queensland start-up company, The Australian Wild Camel Corporation, has just been hit with a lawsuit seeking $1.4 million.

The Australian Wild Camel Corp wants to grow its herd from 450 to 2500 in the next two years.

CAMEL DRAMA

THEY have ambitious plans to develop Australia’s biggest commercial camel farm, producing milk and meat for health-conscious consumers.

But it looks like Queensland entrepreneurs Jeff Flood and Paul Martin have run in to a wee bit of strife. A hump in the road you might say.

Their start-up company, The Australian Wild Camel Corporation, has just been hit with a lawsuit seeking $1.4 million.

In a claim filed last week in Brisbane Supreme Court, property owner Steve Clements alleges he has been chasing the money for five months with no luck.

Clements maintains his deal to sell the company a 63ha parcel of land at Mutdapilly, south of Ipswich, was supposed to settle in early December.

Jeff Flood (L) and Paul Martin illustration by Jonathan Bentley.

Since then, he alleges the company has wheeled out a series of excuses about why that hasn’t happened.

The company has lodged no defence in the case, which is scheduled to have its first directions hearing Thursday morning.

Martin, a former grazier who owns a million dollar-plus acreage property at Pullenvale, said on Wednesday that he understood the legal challenge had been dropped.

He claimed the settlement had merely been “delayed’’ until June 30 but neither Clements nor his lawyer could be reached to verify this.

Martin said he had just received an email from his lawyer confirming the case would not proceed but he did not forward it to City Beat, as requested.

Court records show the matter remains active and has not been resolved or withdrawn.

Martin and Flood, a biochemist who lives in an acreage spread on the Sunshine Coast, started the company in mid-2015.

By July last year they said investors had tipped in more than $5 million and they hoped to raise another $10 million.

Martin would not discuss dollars on Wednesday even as the company has flagged plans to grow its herd from 450 to 2500 camels in the next two years.

There’s even been ambitious talk of a Northern Territory farm with 3500 of the ill-tempered beasts.

But, like so many other camel investment schemes in the past, that might just end up as one more pie-in-the-sky dream.

RARE FOLDING STUFF

ONE of Australia’s rarest bank notes can be yours for a cool $495,000.

Only two of the 1824 Bank of New South Wales notes denominated in “twenty Spanish dollars’’ are known to exist.

Westpac has one in its archives. The other one will be on sale this weekend at the Brisbane Money Expo at the Royal International Convention Centre at Bowen Hills.

Belinda Downie, who runs rare currency mob Coinworks, told your diarist that one of her clients considered it his prize possession but, regretfully, he needed to liquidate some assets.

To give you an idea of the potential capital gain, this gent bought the note in 2011 for $350,000. Downie noted that the currency, hand-signed by bank directors including John Oxley, is one of the earliest recorded private banknotes.

1824 Bank of New South Wales bank note.

“As a nation, we glorify the Holey Dollar and Dump, as our first coins, and we respect the role that the Spanish Silver Dollar had in their creation,’’ Downie said.

“We believe this banknote should be held in similar regard. It’s a national treasure.’’

That pocket change she mentioned will be on display at the weekend too, along with Australia’s first gold coin, an 1852 Adelaide Pound valued at $450,000.