Simon McKeon’s Arthurs Seat Eagle has landed as administrators step in

Arthurs Seat gondola’s Simon McKeon Hans Brugman during the initial development. Picture: Valeriu Campan

The eagle has landed. Crash landed, actually.

Former Macquarie Banker and newly-appointed National Australia Bank director Simon McKeon’s passion project, the five-year redevelopment of the iconic chair lift at Arthurs Seat on Melbourne’s Mornington Peninsula, has flopped.

The McKeon-chaired and part-owned Arthurs Seat Eagle Pty Ltd was on Monday quietly placed into the hands of external administrators and its operations as a key tourist attraction in the region bolted shut.

Administrators Robert Ditrich and Craig Crosbie from PwC are now in charge of the failed operations, which opened in December 2016 at an estimated cost of $20m.

The company signed a 50-year lease on the site with the Victorian government in 2015 and went on to develop a gondola-style lift running from a base station in Dromana to the Arthur’s Seat Summit.

McKeon’s fellow investors who appear to have done their money on the regional project include Melbourne transport, logistics and property billionaire Peter Gunn and his family via their PGA Group.

According to this newspaper’s The List, Gunn is worth $1.54bn.

Other directors of Arthurs Seat Eagle include Tracey Cooper, who is a former adviser to Victorian government minister Martin Pakula and the chair lift’s chief executive Hans Brugman.

Arthurs Seat Eagle boss Tom Smith posted a “Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update” on the company’s website on Monday, informing customers the attraction was closed “until further notice”.

“We regret having to take this step and we are looking forward to the time when we can welcome you back to Arthurs Seat Eagle,” Smith wrote, without mention of the appointment of administrators to the business.

A recorded message said “we have been directed to close due to the coronavirus crisis”.

Neither former AMP chair McKeon, who has long held an expansive home at nearby Mccrae, nor Gunn appear to be secured creditors to the group, indicating the veteran businessmen seem to have done their dough on the gondola dream.