Bankruptcy trustees pursue US assets held by failed cattle baron Sam Mitchell

Sam Mitchell and his California home, which is now being pursued by creditors.

Creditors pursuing would-be cattle baron Sam Mitchell’s assets are preparing to seize control of the $US3.3m San Diego mansion where the failed businessman is holed up, taking their fight to reclaim cash and assets to the US courts.

Mitchell’s bankruptcy trustees, Matthew Vines and John Shanahan of Hall Chadwick, filed documents in a California court this week seeking a hold on his assets and legal recognition of their right to seize cash and property to help pay off Mitchell’s estimated $71.4m in personal debts.

The assets include cash held in US bank accounts under his own name and that of companies he controls, as well as a San Diego home bought by Mitchell’s US-registered company Wealthcheck LLC for $US3.4m in 2018. That property was transferred into Mitchell’s name in a “nominal, non-arms length” transaction in 2021, according to court filings by Hall Chadwick.

Wealthcheck boss Sam Mitchell at his palatial Californian home, now under threat from his bankruptcy trustees.

But the same court documents suggest that Mitchell then transferred the ownership of the property into a trust in July 2024 – only a month after the Australian Taxation Office launched an attempt to wind up the Australian company that sat at the heart of his business affairs.

Mitchell’s ambition to build a $1bn agricultural empire came crashing down shortly afterwards, after Hong Kong lender ADM Capital won a court case holding Mitchell to personal guarantees worth $US35m ($52m) tied to a string of failed loans for agricultural deals.

ADM partly funded deals to buy stakes in the Maryfield and Limbunya stations in the Northern Territory for $38.2m and $65.2m, respectively, from Colin Ross’s North Star Pastoral in 2022. ADM also fronted another $US13.8m to back the purchase of livestock for the Mitchell River Cattle Company, a joint venture between Mitchell and agricultural deal-maker Danny Thomas.

The liquidators of Mitchell’s Wealthcheck business, also known as Bondi Ag, have told creditors they believe the business could have been trading while insolvent for as long as nine years before the teetering empire finally crashed down.

ADM’s legal action was triggered by the failure of Mitchell’s companies to make a $US575,372 loan repayment and the bitter legal dispute – along with separate action by other lenders – has forced the carve-up of Mitchell’s grand agricultural ambitions.

US filings by Hall Chadwick allege Mitchell owes $3.7m to the ATO, as well as $55.2m to ADM, and almost $40,000 to AMEX.

The Sydney businessman also owes $4m to Wealthcheck management, and the same amount to Rivera Farm Management, a company owned by his wife Andrea Miller, which is also being liquidated.

Wealthcheck boss Sam Mitchell and his wife Andrea Miller.

Mitchell left Australia last year and declared bankruptcy in September 2024.

In court filings lodged in a Sydney court earlier this year, Hall Chadwick alleged that the bankrupt businessman had shifted hundreds of thousands of dollars to his American operation Wealthcheck LLC after declaring bankruptcy.

Vines told the court in an affidavit he was concerned that Mitchell was moving to avoid his debts by moving assets outside Australia, and by trying to replace trustees, directors or shareholders of his companies to keep them away from bankruptcy trustees.

Hall Chadwick is seeking orders from the California bankruptcy court to prevent other creditors from seizing assets from Mitchell in the US courts, as well as assistance to “facilitate the Australian bankruptcy proceeding and the orderly administration of the bankruptcy estate’s affairs”.

Hall Chadwick has already taken control of Mitchell’s farm in Upper McDonald, near Sydney, as well as seizing proceeds of the sale of his Beechcraft King private plane.