Ex-AFL boss Andrew Demetriou caught up education provider’s collapse

Former AFL supremo Andrew Demetriou is likely to be among shareholders asked to hand back loans made to them by failed education provider Acquire Learning, which collapsed in 2017 owing debts of $145 million.

Acquire MD John Wall and chairman Andrew Demetriou at the company's Armadale office in Melbourne.

Former AFL supremo Andrew Demetriou is likely to be among shareholders asked to hand back loans made to them by failed education provider Acquire Learning.

Acquire had ambitions of being a sharemarket-listed education powerhouse, but collapsed in May 2017 owing debts of $145 million.

Its creditors include the Australian Taxation Office.

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It has been suggested the company — which signed up students and job seekers to vocational training courses — wrongly continued to operate and take government funding.

Acquire company founder Tim Demetriou, the nephew of Andrew, is expected in the coming months to be appearing at hearings into the matter before Victoria’s Supreme Court.

Liquidators will outline further actions, and it is likely they will attempt to claw back $15 million in loans Acquire made to shareholders including the former AFL boss, Tim Demetriou, and businessmen John Wall, Damien Dau, Peter Lewis and Jesse Sahely.

Andrew Demetriou is listed as having a loan of $311,000.

The Herald Sun is not suggesting Andrew Demetriou, Tim Demetriou, Mr Wall, Mr Dau, Mr Lewis nor Mr Sahely engaged in any wrongdoing.

Liquidators have previously identified substantial issues at the company including possible insolvent trading and breaches of directors’ duties.

Andrew Demetriou was never registered with the corporate regulator as a director of Acquire, but was chairman of the company’s advisory board between February 2014 and June 2016. Picture: Nicole Garmston

Andrew Demetriou was never registered with the corporate regulator as a director of Acquire, but was chairman of the company’s advisory board between February 2014 and June 2016.

He was paid $900,000 a year for the three-day-a-week advisory role.

He declined to comment after being contacted by the Herald Sun.

The Australian Taxation Office said it would continue to work with liquidators to investigate the collapse of Acquire Learning.

“At the conclusion of the public examination process the liquidators will be in a better position to determine the next step in their investigations and, or, recovery options,” an ATO spokeswoman said.

In February, the former AFL boss was questioned under oath in the Supreme Court over the nature of his advisory role to Acquire.

At that appearance he told the court he had little knowledge of its financial affairs.

Mr Demetriou described his role as “primarily to open doors” and to “use my network of contacts”. He said he was also a “sounding board for a young group of people wanting to start a business”.

In an August 2014 email, shown to the court, Mr Demetriou told his nephew Acquire was worth between $1.2 billion and $1.5 billion.

During June 2014 it returned $7.06 million profit, but when it collapsed in April 2017, it owed creditors $145 million.

In a document from December last year liquidators assessed that work could continue well into next year “and possibly longer depending on recovery actions”.

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