Westpac appoints receiver to protect against losses on Ireland cattle

Westpac Banking Corporation has appointed receivers to cattle and embryos held at Corey and Prue Ireland’s Riverina Angus stud.

Westpac has appointed receivers to the livestock and frozen embryos at Corey and Prue Ireland’s property at Kyeamba.

THE  Angus empire of Corey and Prue Ireland appears to be crumbling.

Westpac Banking Corporation took the Ireland family trust’s new trustee, IFTT Pty Ltd, to the Supreme Court of NSW on Christmas Eve to get a receiver appointed to protect the assets bought through loans.

The court appointed Morgan Kelly, of KPMG, as receivers to the livestock and frozen embryos held at the Irelands’ property, Ivydell, at Kyeamba, south of Wagga Wagga.

IFTT is wholly owned by Prue Ireland and she is its sole director.

Corey Ireland.

As reported in The Weekly Times last week, IFTT was established on November 15 and appointed trustee of the Ireland family trust the same day.

The previous trustee was CD & PJ Ireland Pty Ltd, another Ireland company, which was placed in liquidation on November 14 by East Coast Stockfeeds to recoup $43,000.

According to an initial report seen by the liquidators of CD & PJ Ireland Pty Ltd — Tim Gumbleton and Andrew Bowcher, of RSM Australia Partners — Westpac was owed about $3.5 million, believed to be for loans for cattle.

The liquidators said in their report Westpac had a personal property security registration over 1654 stud and commercial Angus cattle at Ivydell.

A Westpac spokesman said the bank appointed receivers to the cattle and embryos to “preserve the assets”.

The Irelands have been in the courts many times over the past two years, a number of them bankruptcy applications.

In April last year, the Deputy Commissioner of Taxation and a number of other parties took bankruptcy action in the Federal Court against Mr Ireland.

The Deputy Commissioner of Taxation withdrew from the case in about August this year, although one party, Richard Allsopp, of Wagga Wagga, continued legal action until November, when the registrar ruled against him on jurisdictional grounds.

In May last year, Elders took action in the Supreme Court of South Australia to wind up CD & PJ Ireland Pty Ltd to recoup $660,000.

The case was settled out of court and the case settled two months later.

In September last year, stockfeed company Castlegate James Australasia Pty Ltd took bankruptcy action against Prue Ireland in the Federal Court in Melbourne.

The case was discontinued a month later.

In March this year, Wilmar Pastoral Pty Ltd, owned by Nick and Amy Martin, of Dilpurra in the Riverina, took Irelands Angus Breeding Pty Ltd — a company now half owned by IFTT Pty Ltd — to the Local Court in Wagga Wagga to recoup $16,000 for hay that was delivered two years ago.

The case was discontinued in September.

Mr Martin said they had still not been paid for the hay, despite Mr Ireland claiming he had.

In June, credit card company American Express Australia Limited took bankruptcy action against Mr Ireland in the Federal Court.

That action appears to be ongoing, according to the court’s website.

On July 2, Ruralco subsidiary Platinum Operations took Irelands Angus Breeding Pty Ltd to the Federal Court to recoup a debt believed to be $17,000.

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The case was settled on September 18. The Irelands won a court battle on December 20, when the NSW Court of Appeal overturned a District Court decision in March which awarded damages of $200,000 against them over alleged misrepresentation of the sire of a bull they sold.

Mr Ireland said he did not want to comment.

Mrs Ireland did not return The Weekly Times’ call.