WA property tycoon Warren Anderson bankrupted

Swashbuckling West Australian property developer Warren Anderson has been bankrupted.

His fortune – estimated at $190 million by BRW in 1989 – had been amassed over 20 years spent consolidating supermarket sites for Coles and speculative office market construction.

He invested his profits into his passion for trophy properties filled with the finest of antiques. He was also passionate about animal welfare and preservation.

“You don’t get a feed in the bush by making a lot of noise as you go through,” Anderson once said of his predilection for privacy.

But when Anderson had issues with bankers knocking on his front door after the 1990s property downturn, the tycoon famously fought to maintain his Elizabeth Bay residency, the Spanish Mission-style trophy home Boomerang, on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald.

Boomerang had been repossessed by the Bank of New York in 1993 but Mr Anderson’s security guards briefly took over the property before the bank regained possession after a $56 million demand notice.

Boomerang was then auctioned after a last-minute court challenge failed to stop the mortgagee sale.

The Bank of New York also started proceedings over another Anderson property, the historic Fernhill mansion at Mulgoa in Sydney’s outer west, but Anderson managed to maintain its ownership.

Anderson, whose developments include about 70 shopping centres, six office towers and Northern Territory’s parliament house, was almost brought to his financial knees by the Rothwells-Westralia Square fiasco.

Builder Warren Sizer was the petitioning creditor at the June 21 sequestration hearing with Mark Conlan appointed his insolvency trustee.

Sizer launched proceedings over unpaid bills for work on a half-finished Johnston Street, Peppermint Grove project.

Anderson has put the bankruptcy down to losing control of his finances after receivers took over all the family trust assets following a messy public divorce.

Receivers Korda-Mentha have now placed Fernhill, his $50 million plus place of residence, for sale through Colliers. The antique contents were auctioned last year.

During the early proceedings with Sizer, he showed unusual signs of weariness towards the ongoing court battles and lawyers’ fees.

“If you don’t have money, you don’t get justice because the lawyers absolutely devastate you with fees,” he suggested.

Now he concedes: “The whole bloody shooting match is up in the air and beyond my control.”

This article first appeared on Property Observer, Australia’s top site for property investment news.