Owner of deregistered college makes $22m profit on land deal that left farming family furious

A company linked to a deregistered international student kingpin scored a quick $22m profit in a land deal that has left elderly hobby farmers feeling they were paid ‘relative peanuts’ for the site.

Rupinder Brar (seated beside the PM), Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Daniel Andrews (seated to the other side of the PM) at a function held in Toorak on November 12, 2024.

A company linked to a deregistered international student kingpin who dined privately with Anthony Albanese and Daniel Andrews scored a quick $22m profit in a spectacular land deal that has left elderly hobby farmers feeling they were paid “relative peanuts” for the site.

The Weekend Australian can reveal 31 Kinloch Pty Ltd signed an $11m contract to buy the Craigieburn property on Melbourne’s northern outskirts in November 2021 and then sold the land in November 2022 for $33.5m.

The company that pocketed the $22m windfall from flipping the 14ha block is operated by Indian-Australian millionaire businessman Rupinder Brar – owner and operator of the deregistered Barkly International College – and his construction business partner, Sarabjot Dhillon.

Four months after 31 Kinloch agreed to pay the hobby farmers $11m, the Victorian government revealed global online shopping giant Amazon was going to build a massive warehouse on a nearby industrial estate.

80 Kinloch Crt, Craigieburn, which was bought by a company associated with Rupinder Brar.

In a press release issued on March 18, 2022, then treasurer Tim Pallas hailed the arrival of Amazon as a “vote of confidence in Melbourne’s burgeoning north”.

Sources familiar with the Amazon deal have confirmed the March 18 announcement was the first time the investment in Craigieburn had been made public.

Responding to questions from The Weekend Australian, Mr Brar said 80 Kinloch Court was “purchased as part of our industrial portfolio for future industrial development”.

Mr Brar said after buying the property, his company received an “unsolicited” approach from a Hawthorn-based commercial property firm and confirmed it onsold the block to that firm.

It subsequently sold the block to Amazon, property records show, for a staggering $79m. Mr Brar described the price Amazon paid for the land as a “substantial uplift” over what his company received for the same land.

“The price increases may seem substantial but, in reality, anyone involved in the industrial property sector in Victoria can tell you that there has been substantial price growth as a result of market conditions and demand for industrial land in the last five years,” he said.

Mr Brar said his business had “no knowledge of Amazon’s intention to purchase 80 Kinloch Court or have a presence in the area”.

“Obviously had we known this, we wouldn’t have sold the property in the first place (for $33.5m) and would have tried to sell direct to Amazon for a much higher price than we received,” he said.

Sarabjot Dhillon, a business partner of Rupinder Brar.

The company that paid the Brar-Sarabjot firm $33.5m for the land went on to sell the block to Amazon for $79m in February 2024. The sale was settled in December.

The Italian hobby farm family, who bought the property 40 years ago, told The Weekend Australian they came under intense pressure through 2020 and 2021 from real estate agents to sell their land in Kinloch Court.

A family member, who The Weekend Australian has agreed not to identify, said the family were in “shock” over their hobby farm’s dramatic surge in value and now felt they had sold it for “relative peanuts”.

“They (real estate agents) just wouldn’t go away,” the family member, in her 80s, said.

“Lose count, lose count (how many times the agents approached the family). They would say ‘how this was an opportunity, if this opportunity goes, you’ll probably never sell it again’. It was pretty unusual.”

The family said they were unaware that Amazon was coming to the nearby industrial park and assumed they were selling the hobby farm to another family.

“The agents weren’t working for us. They were working to get our land cheap,” the family member said. “It was quite daunting for us, you know. We were being practically told our land was worthless.”

Company records confirm Mr Dhillon was the sole director, secretary and shareholder of 31 Kinloch when the $11m deal was struck. Mr Brar was appointed a director of the firm in June 2022, about nine months before the deal was settled.

In a statement on Friday, Mr Dhillon said “to be clear, we had no knowledge of Amazon’s intentions” when 31 Kinloch purchased the hobby farm.

Anthony Albanese and Mr Brar at a function in Toorak on November 12, 2024.

Property records show 31 Kinloch signed an $11m contract for the land on November 4, 2021, to buy it from the hobby farmers; 31 Kinloch asked for and received a long settlement on the deal.

The documents confirm that before the $11m deal was settled on March 20, 2023, the Brar-linked company signed a contract on November 9, 2022 to sell the Craigieburn site for $33.5m to the Hawthorn-based firm. The $33.5m sale was settled on April 13, 2023. The Hawthorn firm went on to sell the same land to Amazon in December 2024 for $79m, sales records confirm.

Mr Brar is also a director and owner of Barkly International College, which was deregistered after regulators detected “significant noncompliance” around marketing, enrolment and governance. Barkly has appealed its deregistration and a preliminary hearing is listed for later this month.

In addition to 31 Kinloch, ASIC records also show that Mr Brar has had links to a range of other similarly named firms including 20 Kinloch, 37 Kinloch and 10 Kinloch.

The Punvec Group is Mr Brar’s highest-profile property business in his vast property empire that spans scores of companies listed with ASIC.

Punvec Plaza, an offshoot, is co-owned with his business partner and friend Dushyant Khanna, who hosted the Albanese-Andrews Indian banquet at the Toorak mansion he lives in.

The Weekend Australian revealed last month that Mr Brar and about a dozen Indian-Australian business figures enjoyed a VIP banquet with the Prime Minister and Mr Andrews on November 12 last year. Mr Brar sat next to the PM at the event.

Dinner guests have revealed in social media posts that among the issues discussed during the ­November event were visas, tourism, the economy, and the property and construction sectors.

Mr Albanese and Mr Andrews have declined to answer questions as to whether the dinner was a Labor Party fundraising event to generate campaign cash for this year’s election.

In an Instagram post shortly after the VIP event, Mr Brar stated: “Great Meeting with Honourable Prime Minister of Australia!”

Mr Brar did not respond to questions from The Weekend Australian on Friday as to whether the November 12 dinner was a Labor fundraiser and, if so, how much it cost.