Inside the $8m collapse of luxury eastern suburbs designer Adriana Benhamou Weiss’ firm

The liquidator of the company owned by eastern suburbs interior designer Adriana Benhamou Weiss has raised serious questions about how the business operated.

Adriana Benhamou Weiss pictured at her Vaucluse home. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

The day before the globetrotting interior design company run by Sydney socialite Adriana Benhamou Weiss was placed in liquidation owing $8 million, she made a move that raised the suspicions of investigators.

The 40-year-old’s Vaucluse based company, Benhamou Designs, had run projects for the rich and influential in Sydney, Europe and the Middle East before it was handed to liquidators on July 4, 2018.

But one day earlier, company records show Ms Weiss, who was last month charged by the Australian ­Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) in relation to falsified records, had registered another company: BHD Partners.

According to a report filed with ASIC by the liquidator who examined the company’s wreckage, the move raised several questions.

Socialite Adriana Benhamou Weiss was charged by ASIC. Picture: Chloe Paul

Such as why were Ms Weiss’ two children, both minors, listed as the only shareholders of the new company?

And had Ms Weiss been engaged in phoenixing? This is a process where the operations of a failed business are transferred into the name of another to avoid paying money owed to creditors.

“Inquiries are ongoing to ascertain whether … (Benhamou Designs’) business has been transferred to BHD for no consideration, leaving the company with no ability to pay its debts,” liquidator Robyn Duggan, from firm Ferrier Hodgson, wrote in the report.

The biggest creditor was the Australian Taxation Office, which is owed $3.9 million and had Ms Weiss’ company placed into liquidation in July 2018.

The report concluded it was unlikely any money would be recovered and raised other questions. Such as what happened to the $550,000 in loans the company made to Ms Weiss? The loans included $334,776 that “appeared to be personal in nature”, which liquidators requested Ms Weiss repay, the report said.

Last month, ASIC charged Ms Weiss with 12 counts of directing an employee to falsify financial records that were used for the company between November and December 2016. ASIC alleges the records were created in an attempt to show payments had been made by Benhamou Designs to suppliers and contractors when no payments occurred.

Ms Weiss was to furnish Neville Crichton’s Point Piper mansion. Picture: Craig Greenhill

Benhamou Designs was established in 2014 and saw Ms Weiss employ the international elite. Ninety per cent of her clients were in Dubai and London and she also featured in the pages of Vogue Magazine.

In Sydney Ms Weiss was a frequent fixture at society charity events and mixed the uber wealthy. 

She was to furnish the $45 million Point Piper mansion of multi-millionaire yachtie Neville Crichton before they ended up in court when the furniture failed to arrive.

Behind the glamour, the company’s financial documents painted a disastrous picture. The company had $8682 in the bank when the liquidators were appointed and almost no assets except a few computers, the report said

The company made net losses of $402,000 in 2015, $305,000 in 2016 and $327,000 in 2017, the ­report said. However, the report said the ATO was told the amounts were far less.

Income tax lodgements for the business said the losses were $152,000 in 2015, $55,000 in 2016 and $76,000 in 2017. The company was ­estimated to have been insolvent from June 30, 2015.

Ms Duggan recommended Ms Weiss be investigated for insolvent trading after allegedly allowing the business to accrue $7.5 million in debts while insolvent.

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