Oswals take hit on Taj on Swan

Pankaj and Radhika Oswal and family dog Coco. Picture: Louis Kwok for The Australian

Indian industrialist Pankaj Oswal and wife Radhika have sold their derelict half-built dream home “Taj on Swan” in Perth’s exclusive Peppermint Grove. It was not a good investment.

Pankaj and Radhika — the flamboyant heirs to a contested billionaire family fortune — reportedly sold the home this week for $17 million, cementing a significant loss for the now Dubai-based couple, who paid $22.7m for the patch in Western Australia’s booming 2006.

And that’s not the end of their losses.

Before the Oswals can even think about any cash back from the 12-year investment — held in the name of the former Perth socialite Radhika — there are a few financial loose ends to tie up.

In June 2011 the Shire of Peppermint Grove slapped a caveat on the title of the Bayview Terrace home, signalling to the Oswals that it intended to collect monies owed in the event the 6000-plus square metre block was sold.

The council may also be owed rate payments left unpaid by the Oswals, as well as the cost of demolishing the structural eyesore (estimated to have cost in the order of $500,000).

Title documents show there is also a mortgage over the property, held by mysterious Dubai-based Mercury Services Limited for an undisclosed amount.

In 2016, the Federal Court found that the company was associated with Radhika’s brother Raghau Gupta.

We expect he’ll be pleased to see the house sale settled as quickly as possible.

Waiting for the mo

It was another moustache-free day at Kenneth Hayne’s royal commission as the obfuscation by Andrew Thorburn’s NAB executives Paul Carter and Nicole Smith went on and on.

AustralianSuper CEO Ian Silk, the next in to bat, spent the whole day with his pads on as counsel assisting Michael Hodge — in the last two days, more baby face than assassin — struggled from the morning to afternoon session to pin NAB’s representatives with what he has characterised as a fees-for-no-service rort.

Watching in the audience were Ownership Matters proxy guru Dean Paatsch (there for his royal commission debut), Media Super chairman Gerard Noonan (as informed an observer as any) and ASIC’s royal commission point man, Chris Savundra.

AustralianSuper’s product, brand and reputation executive Paul Schroder was also along to watch another inglorious day for their retail nemeses.

Meanwhile, back at the roughly $140 billion industry fund giant’s office on Lonsdale Street, Schroder’s boss Silk was toiling away for his 2.2 million members.

“He was just working in his office. Making the world a better place for our members,” said one of his loyal lieutenants.

As AustralianSuper is the default fund for our federal politicians, those members include dozens of Canberra’s best-known visitors, including Labor leader Bill Shorten, his numbers team Chris Bowen and Jim Chalmers. On the Liberal side, Finance Minister Mathias Cormann is a member, and Kelly O’Dwyer may well be one (the minister with superannuation responsibilities won’t reveal which industry super giant she is with).

The moustache is expected to take the stage today. Plenty of our most powerful citizens will hope he has a good story to tell.

Taxing times

Arnold Bloch Leibler co-founder Mark Leibler gave Scott Morrison quite an introduction yesterday at the Australia Israel Chamber of Commerce luncheon at Melbourne’s Crown casino.

Leibler delivered a short lecture on the virtues of New Zealand’s tax system where — after considerable reform by former PM John Key (now a director on David Gonski’s ANZ board) and former PM Bill English (now a director on Michael Chaney’s Wesfarmers board) — the gap between the top personal marginal tax rate and the company tax rate was closed to 5 per cent. In Australia, it was approaching 20 per cent (as recently pointed out by distinguished AFR letter writer Paul Keating).

“If we could just address this imbalance alone … it would remove the vast bulk of the system’s complexity and eliminate most of the tax minimisation industry,” Leibler told the assembled.

“If we can’t address it, how can any Australian government claim that our tax system is fair?” he asked before warning Treasurer ScoMo that he needed to act before the vulnerabilities of the Australian economy were exposed.

Eventually, the Treasurer was allowed a go at the podium.

ScoMo began: “It’s great to be back here at the Chamber in Melbourne to once again provide a vote of thanks to the guest speaker today.”

It took the crowd a few moments to absorb the punchline.

Paying respects

For many in Melbourne, it was a sombre day as friends of Frank Jones gathered at Green Acres Golf Club in Kew to celebrate the life of the accountant to the rich and famous.

The clubhouse was packed, as to be expected for a man with such a talent for friendship.

He wasn’t bad with numbers either, with clients climbing the peaks of the Rich List.

Shopping centre billionaire John Gandel was along, as was property developer Max Beck, while retail billionaire Solomon Lew was represented by his son Peter. Also squeezed in the clubhouse were Arnold Bloch Leibler partner Henry Lanzer, former ABL-er John Fast (now at Seawick) and Andrew Rogers, the son of Roger David retail chain founder Kalman Rogers.

Jones, a long time mentor to Lew, died last week. He was 88.