Developer Jim Raptis’s listed Raptis Group posts $466,283 profit from $25 million revenue

REPEAT comeback developer Jim Raptis’s listed company is making money again after selling off $25.5 million worth of units in a Brisbane housing development. Now he has his sights set on ‘development opportunities’ for the Gold Coast.

Jim Raptis during a creditors meeting in 2008. Picture: Michael Ross

REPEAT comeback developer Jim Raptis’s listed company is making money again, posting a $466,283 interim profit after selling $25.5 million worth of units in a Brisbane housing development. Raptis Group made a $54,848 loss the same time last year.

Many of Raptis Group’s shareholders, including the Australian Government, find themself in the interesting position of also being its creditors, still holding out for a return after the developer’s latest meltdown, during the GFC construction of the $700 million Southport Central.

The December-half financial statements show accumulated tax losses of $27.867 million but that figure might mushroom.

The group says their calculation shows it might receive a tax benefit of more than $47 million against losses logged by companies it previously controlled.

At the current tax rate, that calculation puts the previous losses at $158 million.

The calculation in the interim report is listed under ‘unrecognised tax losses’ because assets held by the former entities are yet to be offloaded.

Jim Raptis. Photo: David Clark

Along with Mr Raptis, who is chairman, the group’s board consists of his wife Helen Raptis and long-time employee Malcolm Cory.

The company’s results statement said it had settled the sale of 56 of 57 townhouses it had completed at Springwood in November.

“The company is researching the market and conducting due diligence into new development opportunities in Brisbane and the Gold Coast,” Mr Raptis wrote in a media release lodged with the ASX.

“We will be making further announcements as new projects are confirmed.”

Mr Raptis, who ASIC’s records say has also gone by the name Michael Neophytou, is the majority shareholder of Raptis Group through his company Hanslow Holdings.

Raptis Group resumed trading on the stock exchange in December 2015, after an eight-year suspension after it struck financial problems during early construction of the third tower at Southport Central in 2008.

It first listed in 1986 and was known for developing landmark Glitter Strip high-rises including The Moroccan, The Phoenician and Bel Air in the 1990s and later the $400 million and Chevron Renaissance towers. It launched the Hilton Hotel but the project was taken over by financier ANZ.

ARTIST’S IMPRESSIONS VERSUS REALITY

Southport Central. Photo by Richard Gosling

The Raptis Group’s first meltdown, in 1991, left investors owed $65 million but the company worked its way out of trouble after striking a deal in which creditors recovered just 3.5¢ in the dollar.

The Raptis Group was in dire straits again in 2008 under the weight of almost $1 billion in debt but again survived, this time through a deed of company arrangement struck with creditors in 2009.

Its latest rise was stalled during a decade-long stoush with the Australian Taxation Office in which the group managed to reduce a $30 million tax bill to $6 — that’s not a typo — $6.

The teflon developer has been through all of this and managed to stay in a breathtaking riverfront home built at Paradise Waters on land bought from Sunland group’s Soheil Abedian for $3.175 million in 2002.

The home at Commodore Drive Paradise Waters.

The home is owned by another Raptis company, Northernson, of which Mr Raptis is sole director but has no ownership.

That company’s sole $1 share is owned by a Biggera Waters retiree named Merilee Lisle.