Melbourne property development group Longriver has been placed in liquidation

Andrew Yu’s property development company Longriver Group has been placed in liquidation.

Former Longriver project, East Central Tower, at Whitehorse Rd, Box Hill.

Andrew Yu’s Melbourne-based property development company Longriver Group has been placed in liquidation.

PKF partner Paul Allen has been placed in control of group companies Longriver Group, Longriver Holdings and Andrew Yu and Sons Pty Ltd.

This follows Mr Yu’s company Longriver 7 being placed under the control of Payton Capital in December, while a winding up application was lodged against that company last month.

Mr Yu told The Australian that the companies in question no longer had any assets, and after a period of difficulty caused by the pandemic, he had taken the decision to “sit out” of the market.

Previous projects the company had been involved in include the $200m East Central Box Hill residential project on Whitehorse Rd, including 275 apartments, which was completed in mid-2021.

The current owner of that project, Colin Sui, said neither Andrew Yu nor Longriver Group had any association with it any more.

“His involvement ceased over six months ago when he was paid out,’’ Mr Sui said.

“The project is now owned by Top Land Investments, the sole shareholder and director of which is Colin Sui.

“The project was completed in July 2021. Over 200 apartments have been sold and are

occupied by residents and some investors. Only a limited number of apartments are

remaining to be sold.’’

Mr Sui also said the construction finance for the project had been repaid on time.

Mr Yu said his company’s former projects were either for sale or already sold, and the companies had no assets to speak of.

“These entities don’t have actual assets under them,’’ Mr Yu said.

“They were basically like a treasury entities to fund all of the different projects.’’

Mr Yu declined to say what quantum of debt the companies might owe, saying that was a matter for the liquidator to comment on.

“The overall property environment after the pandemic wasn’t really recovering as everybody thought it would,’’ Mr Yu said.

“People were thinking that after this phase things were going to better but it went the other way, and the areas we were previously focused on, being predominantly city and Box Hill were hit hardest by the pandemic, geopolitical changes and new taxes put on the buyers.

“There were significant business difficulties. There were a number of things we didn’t foresee were going to happen.’’

Originally published as Melbourne property development group Longriver has been placed in liquidation