Failed Embody gym’s instructors to finally get paid — by the Australian taxpayer
Taxpayers will have to pick up a $40,000 bill for unpaid wages to instructors who lost their jobs with the closure of the Embody “luxury, holistic fitness studio” in Neutral Bay. At the same time, footage has emerged of the gym founder removing equipment while owing investors $4 million.
- ASIC investigate and members protest as Embody folds and reopens
- Creditors owed $4m after Embody boutique gym failure
Taxpayers will have to pick up a $40,000 bill for unpaid wages to instructors who lost their jobs with the closure of the Embody “luxury, holistic fitness studio” in Neutral Bay — but the controversial gym magnate who laid them off is not paying a cent.
Investors, many of whom were instructors at the gym, have been left almost $4 million out of pocket.
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Meanwhile, Embody founder Scott Capelin has been captured on film at night removing equipment from the up-market gym.
The pictures appear to show baldheaded Mr Capelin carrying gear from the rear of the closed gym and putting it into a white truck last month.
He handed control of the lease and its equipment to friend and business coach Matt Malouf in June last year.
Mr Capelin did not respond to questions about why he was removing items from the gym eight months later.
And even though the rent is due, Mr Capelin has called on the gym’s original creator, British interior design guru Anne McKevitt, to try and persuade the creditors to re-open the business. She told creditors Mr Capelin wanted to rescue the gym and was prepared to step away from the Neutral Bay studio if he could continue to work on the proposed Embody gym in Amsterdam.
“We told her that we would not do anything that would put money into Scott Capelin’s pocket,” said a creditor who claims to be owed $500,000 from the failed business.
Mr Capelin outraged Embody’s well-heeled customers last year by telling them he was reopening the gym in the same premises just weeks after sacking the instructors and allegedly leaving investors millions of dollars in debt.
Now it has emerged taxpayers will foot the bill for the $40,000 owed to the instructors he called in and sacked on the spot.
“They will be paid under the Fair Entitlements Guarantee which is a government safety net of last resort,” liquidator Guy Baxendale said.
Mr Baxendale is watching closely to see if sports car-driving Capelin does manage to re-open the gym.
“Investors have paid almost $2 million for the fit out of that gym and I would be looking for repayment of that money,” he said.
The luxury fit-out was constructed by famed Block interior designer Shaynna Blaze from Ms McKevitt’s design.
She also worked on the Embody gym that was due to open in the QO Hotel in Amsterdam. After the Neutral Bay gym closed down the QO Hotel removed all mention of Embody from its website and said it would “continue to monitor the situation carefully”.
NSW Police are investigating whether money from Neutral Bay was used to fund part of the Amsterdam deal after creditors handed over invoices totalling almost $80,000.
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