Dinner by Heston loses its bottle

Illustration: Rod Clement

There’s a tug of war between the creditors of celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal’s liquidated Australian restaurant and their former landlord Crown Resorts.

It’s over who owns the wine bottles in the cellar.

Crown claims the wine stock is owned by it under a “bailment” agreement.

“I have received advice from my solicitors stating that Crown’s claim may be valid,” liquidator BRI Ferrier’s Brian Silva told the creditors.

There’s also the messy matter of Crown withholding $3m revenue from the collapsed restaurant chain’s bank account. Crown has told Silva it had applied the revenue against the $4.4m they claim is owed to it.

The preferential situation arose as the takings from Dinner by Heston were paid into a bank account operated by Crown.

The report on the company activities before its February closure stated more 460 staff were owed nearly $5m, with the issue of prior underpayment yet to be resolved.

Not much in realisable value with just $231,960 listed in the latest creditors’ report.

The group’s ultimate parent company is in the Isle of Man, and Blumenthal is not a shareholder in the corporate structure behind the restaurant that bore his name.

Hold the Botox

No nips and tucks means the society matrons of Double Bay have been going natural since the coronavirus pandemic closed the doors of the surgeries for the vain.

Plenty of small lips, frown lines and crow’s feet as the cosmetic and plastic surgeons felt the pinch in recent months.

But the retail village’s cosmetic reputation was enhanced this week when the plastic surgeon Louis Wessels emerged as the mystery $7.5m buyer of the Transvaal Ave investment property sold by Aussie John Symond.

The Alexander Tzannes-designed retail space property exchanged in mid-March, just as the COVID-19 lockdown began, through Brad Caldwell-Eyles of 1st City Double Bay.

It had been bought by Symond for $4.8m in 2014 from the former Trent Nathan chief Shane Barr whose nephew fashionista Trent Nathan lived above.

No refurbishment of the retail space yet by the doctor as Symond had extended the lease to Maree Conley’s homewares outlet for a further year until 2022

Winter warmer

Seems the estate agents at Marshall White are leading by example in ensuring Melbourne’s trophy home market has a busier winter than usual with no one heading offshore this year.

With plans to spend more time at their Mornington Peninsula escape, John Bongiorno and wife Anne have just sold their Brighton family home off market for $19.8m. It's the top known sale across Melbourne so far in 2020. Their four bedroom Martin Street home, that sits on 1,650 sqm with tennis court, was sold to Ying Wang and Fuyi Cao.

Now Bongiorno’s colleague Marcus Chiminello has his Kooyong family home listed.

The 1920s home, Bonaventure, has a tennis court, pool and spa in its 1,785 sqm grounds.

Chiminello paid $6,085,000 in 2017, a tad below its $6.6m price tag. His colleague Nicole French has been tasked to find a buyer at $8.7m to $9.5m.

Apartment stoush

There’s a court battle over the East Melbourne apartment that businessman James Kennedy has called his own for two years.

Kennedy, who heads the retailing Kennedy Luxury Group, has lodged two caveats on the plush Clarendon Street apartment following a January 2018 purchasers’ contract at $4.5m with the AXF Group.

Payments totalling $1.1m have apparently been paid by way of deposit and Kennedy did get to move in under licence and then spent $400,000 on renovations.

Minter Ellison’s Don MacCallum, who has four decades experience as a property lawyer, lodged the initial caveat in February 2018.

The next one came earlier this year when Louise Farinotti from Minter Ellison lodged one in the name of Kennedy Pacific Pty Ltd, pursuant to a revised 2019 second sales agreement.

AXF Group is the Richard Gu-led enterprise which paid $4m in 2011 for the fifth floor apartment from the Salta developer Sam Tarascio.

Malcolm Howe was appointed as AXF’s liquidator earlier this year, although Gu recently dismissed it as a “small matter.” The first creditors’ meeting did see the Australian Taxation Office claim to be owed $12.8m.

It’s not the first time Gu has faced credit issues, but he’s previously got through his problems. His previous petitioners over the years have included interior designers Greg Natale and Deece Giles, Mercedes Benz Financial Services and the Melbourne United Basketball Club.

Rebecca Bedford from Minter Ellison commenced Victorian Supreme Court proceedings on behalf of James and Jaimee Kennedy against AXF earlier this month, with Howe as the second defendant.

Left high and dry

The ASX-listed Aspen Group announced an equity raising fully underwritten by Andrew Pridham’s Moelis Australia late on Thursday.

But the $17m placement and $3m share purchase plan unravelled overnight with Aspen advising the market on Friday that the placement was no longer fully underwritten by the lead manager.

Aspen’s biggest shareholder, the Singaporean investment firm Brahman Capital — which has a 19 per cent stake — had, of course, been wall crossed on the raise on Wednesday.

But Brahman only told Moelis an hour before the bookbuild was due to close that it would not be participating in the placement, and instead wanted to sell its entire stake at $1.10, the price of the placement.

The blindsided Aspen told the market it had been “unable to verify” Brahman’s intentions.

Shares were changing hands in the listed holiday and accommodation park owner at $1.195 before the trading halt, with the fresh funds to pay for the recent hillside Burleigh Heads purchase along with balance sheet strengthening.

The joint chief executives of the $115m company, David Dixon and John Carter, who own around 10 per cent, decided to extend the bookbuild until Friday with the share price cut back to $1, with nearly all investors remaining despite the Brahman sell order.

The $17m placement was secured. The share purchase plan follows shortly, but won’t be underwritten.

And Ashley Feuerheerdt, the managing director at Brahman Capital, told Margin Call he’d get the right person to explain everything.

We’re still waiting.

Parking mania

Five residential car park spaces in Potts Point sold midweek for $540,000 as an investment to Sarah Rothwell, wife of Winten Property Group chief executive David Rothwell.

The Challis Ave basement spaces were offered in one line.

The LJ Hooker auction underbidder was local property investor Tony Benjamin, who recently paid $13m to buy Justin Hemmes’ nearby heritage Lotus restaurant premises that has no carparking.

Benjamin, who recently renovated the three upstairs apartments, is now seeking permanent residential tenants given little prospect of securing $700 a night short term vacationers, who’ve disappeared in the pandemic.

The fit-out was inspired by fashion designer Azzedine Alaia’s 3 Rooms Paris hotel.

It was William Manning of McGrath Double Bay who’d identified the car spaces as an opportunity on behalf of his sister Sarah Rothwell. Announced on the market at $380,000, there were eight bidders with the proceeds going to the Australian Heart Foundation.

Rothwell is known for her love of carspaces, having paid a record $300,000 on Campbell Parade, Bondi Beach, when buying a nearby apartment in 2018.