Jon Adgemis secures pub peace deal as payday approaches
Sydney pub baron Jon Adgemis must hand over $400,000 by Friday as part of a peace deal with creditors over his collapsed pub group.
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A rescue deal for Sydney pub baron Jon Adgemis’s hospitality group has succeeded, despite a last-minute attempt by the Australian Taxation Office to vote down the plan, with the former KPMG deal-maker now due to pay $400,000 by Friday.
Records show the ATO attempted to vote down Mr Adgemis’s rescue plan for Public Lifestyle Management, a key pillar of his former Public Hospitality Group of pubs and hotels, at a meeting last month.
Public, as the group was also known, has since rebranded to the Linchpin group, operating five venues.
Mr Adgemis had proposed to settle the debts and outstanding bills of his pub group with a $7.7m rescue plan, comprising a $1m cash component followed by a $6.7m convertible note from backers Archibald Capital.
The note, which covers a string of pubs not covered by the latest liquidation, would vest in mid-2025.
Records of a meeting held on December 20 show Mr Adgemis’s creditors approved the plan, with 33 votes in favour covering almost $64m in debts across the group.
Three creditors, with almost $126.8m in debts, abstained from the vote.
The ATO, which has investigated Mr Adgemis over tax concerns, attempted to vote down the deal with its $17.8m position.
The tax office declined to comment when asked about its vote.
The deal will see staff get their full entitlements, but unsecured creditors of the five pubs covered by the liquidation after lenders tipped the assets into receivership will get just 13.3c on the dollar.
Records show unsecured creditors are owed more than $86.6m, while secured creditors were owed nearly $128.2m in debts when the pub group slipped into liquidation.
Staff were owed a total $4.5m in leave and other entitlements.
FTI Consulting partners Vaughn Strawbridge and Joseph Hansell are receivers of all the companies in liquidation, after being appointed by New York private lenders Muzinich.
Muzinich was one of the key funders of Mr Adgemis’s pub group, having participated in a refinancing deal of the group mid-last year.
The deed of company arrangements proposed by Mr Adgemis did not cover two of the other companies in liquidation.
BDO liquidators Hugh Phillip and Andrew Sallway said Mr Adgemis’s rescue plan gave creditors a better prospect of a return.
But, the liquidators noted, it only came after “potential director misconduct … as evidenced by the failure to pay superannuation and reporting to the ATO”.
This comes after liquidators earlier ruled that Mr Adgemis’s pub group had been trading while insolvent since at least 2021, with allegations the former KPMG deal-maker pulled at least $9m from the business.
Mr Adgemis rejects the allegations of unreasonable and uncommercial transactions.
“Whilst there remains a compelling case to investigate this conduct, we consider the likely return to creditors as a result of these investigations to be nil,” the liquidators said.
The rescue deal is not certain.
If Mr Adgemis fails to pay $600,000 by March 2025 the deal can be terminated and the assets placed into liquidation, or, if the convertible note fails to vest, a meeting of creditors will be called.
Records of the creditors meeting shows a number of former Public Hospitality Group staff questioned the deal but were assured $400,000 was in a trust account ready to be paid. It must be paid by January 10.
The conclusion of the liquidation process for the pubs comes as Mr Adgemis is attempting to push on with works on a number of other pub and hotel assets previously under the Public Hospitality Group banner.
The pub baron is also facing court action from multiple corners, including David Lyall’s private lending operation Milbrook, which has tried to seize two homes in Sydney’s eastern suburbs associated with Mr Adgemis’s family.
Adelaide lender Angas Securities is also facing off against Mr Agencies in the NSW Supreme Court over personnel guarantees on an apartment building in Sydney’s Bondi.
Angas Securities seized the four floor block last year, attempting to sell the property.
Mr Adgemis recently filed his defence in the case, and is set to appear in court on February 6.
Lenders have also seized Mr Adgemis’s 95-foot yacht Hiilani.
Mr Adgemis’s former business partner Peter Crinis has tried to sue the pub boss.
Mr Adgemis did not respond to requests for comment.
Originally published as Jon Adgemis secures pub peace deal as payday approaches
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