Jean Nassif diverted Toplace funds to brother and Beirut property deals: administrator

An explosive creditors report reveals fugitive property developer Jean Nassif transferred Toplace funds to family and treated company money as his own personal bank account.

Fugitive businessman Jean Nassif transferred millions of dollars out of his failed Toplace development empire to his brother Bakhos and also sent funds to Lebanon to back his own land purchases in Beirut, according to admini­strators.

The administrator DvT said it would chase up the transfers that were made ahead of the developer’s collapse, but warned that unsecured creditors were owed about $400m and few assets were left to pay them back.

An explosive report revealed that the developer had traded insolvent since 2020 and had transferred millions of dollars offshore via the Bank of Beirut ahead of Toplace’s failure. This came as the regulator stepped in to remove its building licence and major financier Westpac pulled its support.

The Lebanese-born fugitive is on the run from Australian authorities seeking his arrest over an alleged financial fraud. He was seen dining in Beirut last month.

But at home, Toplace has left behind a trail of defective apartment projects and development sites where it failed to get buildings off the ground, with many of these already sold off.

DvT partners Antony Resnick and Suelen McCallum were called in as administrators of ­Toplace in July last year and their report reveals that Mr Nassif ­potentially committed a series of breaches of the corporations law, atop the fraud allegations.

The report said Mr Nassif had treated company bank accounts as his exclusive personal financial resources. Findings included company funds going to cover various personal expenses, including the deposit, development costs and mortgage payments on his home in Sydney’s Chiswick.

“The director’s use of company bank accounts for personal purposes raises serious issues related to his legal duties,” the report said.

DvT estimated the sum of substantiated transactions amounts to $7,147,971, a notable contrast to the $3,255,583 acknowledged by Mr Nassif.

The administrator’s investigations unveiled several loan accounts involving related parties and associates of Mr Nassif and what it called the “Beirut Loan”.

It identified a loan facility agreement between Westpac and Mr Nassif’s JKN Property Group under which the development group drew $10m from the Australian bank and in 2019 transferred the funds into a Bank of Beirut account owned by Bakhos Khazen Nassif, whom it said was Jean Nassif’s brother.

DvT said it had not identified any repayments being made for this loan and warned that it may not be paid back. “Given the absence of identified repayments and the location of Mr Bakhos Nassif we believe this loan is unrecoverable,” the administrator said.

DvT also identified a loan ­facility a Toplace company held with the Bank of Sydney where $7m was drawn in 2018.

It identified the funds as being transferred to a bank account belonging to Mr Nassif with the Bank of Beirut for the purpose of purchasing land in Lebanon. ­Toplace Pty Ltd repaid the Bank of Sydney and the administrator said the amount should be reflected in Mr Nassif’s loan account with the company.

Jean Nassif spotted in Lebanon.

A mysterious agreement also saw funds transferred to Zenpure Nigeria Limited, a company based in Nigeria. The company is held by Mr Nassif and Elias Geagea, along with two other parties, and was to buy and develop warehouses in the African nation.

Mr Geagea’s consultancy company is responsible for designing and fitting out shops for various Toplace projects. In 2022 a Nassif company recorded a payment to Zenpure Nigeria Limited for $US865,086.

All up, DvT estimated the company’s assets are worth just $3.94m. But unsecured creditors are owed $400,200,937 and statutory creditors $20,207,282.

The report said Toplace failed due to its lack of capitalisation, over-reliance on debt financing, poor strategic and cashflow management of projects and company operations, and losing its building licence. Mr Nassif also undertook many undocumented or poorly documented deals with vendors, purchasers and suppliers.

DvT added that was likely that Toplace had traded while insolvent from 2020 and, as no deed of company arrangement had been proposed, the company should be wound up.