Helm Bar and Bistro Surfers Paradise in administration with debts to NAB, landlord, tax office

A well-known Surfers Paradise watering hole has gone into voluntary administration with debts to its landlord, the tax office, a big bank and others.

The administrator of the Helm Bar says it’s “business as usual”. Picture: iStock

WATERFRONT watering hole Helm Bar and Bistro at Surfers Paradise has gone into voluntary administration with debts to its landlord, the tax office, a big bank and others.

Administrator Peter Lucas was appointed to the company behind the business, CB No 5, on Wednesday.

Helm Bar, which hosted Team Jamaica for last year’s Commonwealth Games, was previously known as the Titanium bar and was the off-field home to the Gold Coast Titans.

It traded as the Pink Elephant Bar before that.

Surfers Paradise couple Colin and Barbara Cadden bought a six-year lease on the bar for $1.25 million in 2016, with an option to extend it by a further 10 years.

Mrs Cadden said at the time she and her husband hoped to make the venue “more like a country pub”.

“That means providing honest pub grub of good quality and at a fair price,” she said.

“We are not about competing with the restaurants in ­Surfers.”

Mr Lucas said it was it was too soon to reveal the scale of the debts owed by the company but that it was “business as usual” at the bar and was hopeful it could trade out of the financial trouble.

Exterior pics of Helm Bar at Surfers Paradise. Picture Mike Batterham

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NAB is a secured creditor, while unsecured creditors include the landlord, legal firm Hopgood Ganim and the tax office, according to documents lodged with ASIC.

Documents lodged with ASIC by Mr Lucas said he had met with the company’s sole director and shareholder, Glasgow-born Mr Cadden, 77, his wife and the company’s accountant Ian Watson, to discuss its financial position in the couple’s Surfers Paradise apartment on August 14.

The documents said the Caddens highlighted issues with their landlord and with their bank, NAB.

Mr Lucas’s documents said his discussions with the landlord’s lawyer about a rent reduction were unsuccessful and that the Caddens had been trying to sell the business.

The Helm Bar property was purchased for $46 million in a package with neighbouring Vibe Hotel by Sydney-registered company Sunny View Property in 2015.

The Vibe Hotel opened a bar of its own, Driftwood Social, in February.

The Helm Bar and neighbouring Vibe Hotel at Surfers Paradise. Picture: Mike Batterham.

Ms Cadden was a nurse and her husband a transport operator when, 40 years ago, they entered the pub business with the Keatings Hotel at Woodend in Victoria. They subsequently ran three other hotels between retirements: the Townhill in north Melbourne, the Angel at Malvern, and the Courthouse at Murwillumbah.

They sold the freehold to the Courthouse in 2014, but became restless and targeted the Helm.

The Helm lease was sold at the time with 35 gaming machines, which netted $648,000 in 2015.

The lease was previously held from 2013 by Kate and Graham Bennett, and Peter Wadsworth, who still operates the Helm Bar and Bistro Sydney.

The company failure follows the closure of two other bars at the river end of Cavill Ave — Coccon Ultralounge, which closed in July last year, and Howl at the Moon, which shut its doors in October 2017.