Creditors seek upside as St Hilliers goes down; ‘Super’ Rebels human after all

St Hilliers was the company behind the Central Coast Quarter project at Gosford in NSW.

It’s that part of the cycle when ­insolvency practitioners are having their time in the sun.

Millionaire Tim Casey’s privately owned St Hilliers is the latest building and construction group to collapse. Last week retailer Godfrey’s tipped over, as did Super Rugby team the Melbourne Rebels.

So there’s plenty of work for the corporate undertakers.

But who’s on the hook to bear the losses that will flow from the latest company failures?

For Casey’s St Hilliers empire, it’s the second time the builder and developer has tipped over. But things second time around are different to the circumstances around the group’s 2012 collapse, when there was no bank debt outstanding.

This time, expect National Australia Bank to be near the front of the line of 62-year-old Casey’s creditors, with the bank as recently as October 2022 providing St Hilliers with a secured lending facility of up to $67.7m to help fund the development of its Central Coast Quarter development in Gosford.

At June 30 last year the facility, which is due in September, was partially drawn. To what extent is unknown.

Michael Buxton.

In May last year, NAB then also provided Casey’s operations with a further $5.25m via a fresh secured facility that at the end of the 2023 financial year was fully drawn. It’s also due for repayment in September.

There are also some high-profile property industry players who have lent money to Casey’s group.

Members of the Buxton family, led by millionaire patriarch Michael Buxton, and including Stephen, Joshua and Ben Buxton, are part owners of a non-bank lender, Corsair Investment Management (CIM), which via a subsidiary provided St Hilliers with an $11.6m debt facility that is repayable in October.

MaxCap co-founder Michael Fowler is also a co-founder of CIM.

Look out for them at the first meeting of creditors, expected to be held next week.

Rebels not so super

It’s a more imminent affair for those owed money by failed Super Rugby club Melbourne Rebels, with creditors said to be owed a whopping $20m-odd set to gather on Thursday to hear from administrators PwC, which is now running things.

Rugby Australia, which was being assisted on the affairs of the club by insolvency expert Morgan Kelly from EY, is believed to have called in PwC, with the call ultimately made last week by Rebels director Owain Stone, who is also the finance director of Rugby Union Victoria.

At noon last Thursday, Rebels directors Neil Hay, Lyndsey Cattermole and Stone met with PwC reps before the appointment paperwork to make it all official was signed.

The Rebels’ jersey is now an endangered animal. Picture: Getty Images

Like in most collapses, the Australian Taxation Office is a significant creditor, with the Melbourne Olympic Parks Trust, which runs AAMI Park where the Rebels are based, also expected to be owed a significant amount, with any loss to be ultimately borne by the Victorian taxpayer.

There are several other suppliers to the Rebels that hold security over club assets, including billionaire Kerry Stokes’s Coates Hire, which is controlled by his Seven Group.

There are also several Rebels directors, including so-called angel investor Cattermole, who is a former director of Myer and Treasury Wines, who have committed funding to the club.

Ouch.

A Swift move

Imagine being the offspring of an economist who climbs to the upper echelon of their profession, someone like Michele Bullock, who held her inaugural post-board meeting press conference on Tuesday as Reserve Bank governor.

There’d be little prospect of Mum handing out idle cash to fund frivolous pursuits.

For the gathering on Tuesday, held under the watchful eye of the central bank’s new chief communications officer, Sally Cray, Bullock would have been prepped relentlessly for seemingly every possible question from the floor.

But Taylor Swift?

Did Cray, who before joining the RBA in December had stints spinning for the Bank of Queensland, Anna Bligh at the Australian Banking Association and working for Malcolm Turnbull as the then prime minister’s deputy chief of staff, think to brief her charge on such frivolity?

Just what impact would the imminent leg of the megastar singer songwriter’s Eras international tour have on the all important rate of inflation in Australia and Bullock and her board’s aim to return it to with the target band of 2-3 per cent?

“Yes, I know all about Taylor Swift inflation as well,” Bullock declared from behind her lectern.

We hear it’s otherwise called “Swiftonomics”.

“My kids put money away to buy the things they want,” she revealed of her two children, a son and a daughter.

We guess when your mum has worked at the central bank for almost 40 years you are left with little choice but to become a good saver.

Bullock might be empathetic, approachable and understandable, but we bet she runs a tight ship. And for now her bank is sticking with its tightening bias, with Bullock declaring that her board hadn’t yet “ruled anything in or out”.

Strap in for a little while yet.