The five-month battle to save veteran developer Jim Raptis’ Gold Coast property company Raptis Group has come to an end, with the company placed in the hands of administrators yesterday with debts of more than $780 million.
A steady stream of Raptis Group subsidiaries have been placed in receivership since last September as the Gold Coast property market went into freefall and the company struggled under its huge debt load.
The demise of Raptis Group started when the subsidiary developing Raptis’s $700 million Southport Central development, a company known as Limdaning, was placed in receivership by lender Capital Finance Australia after it failed to pay sub-contractors.
Brian Silvia and Andrew Cummins of insolvency firm BRI Ferrier have been named joint administrators of Raptis Group. It is believed Commonwealth Bank, ANZ and Capital Finance Australia are owed money, although the amounts are not yet clear.
Raptis Group also owes about $25 million to sub-contractors employed by Raptis Group subsidiary Rapcivic Contractors, which was placed in receivership last December.
This is the second time Jim Raptis’s property empire has collapsed. The Gold Coast property crash of the early 1990s also forced Raptis Group into administration and in 1991 the company negotiated a deed of arrangement with unsecured creditors whereby they received just 3.54c in the dollar.
Raptis told the Gold Coast Bulletin that circumstances surrounding this crash were quite different.
“The difference is that it’s larger and also the financial crisis happened so much more quickly.”
But Raptis remains hopeful of restructuring the group. “It is very disappointing that we had to take this step, but we believe this course of action is in the best interests of all stakeholders in the current financial climate.
“There is a lot of work to be done, but we are doing everything possible to secure the future of the group for the benefit of all stakeholders,” he said in a statement.
Raptis says he is also selling personal assets, including his Gold Coast mansion.
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James was the editor and publisher of SmartCompany and LeadingCompany for five years. He is now the Australian Financial Review‘s companies & markets editor, and a former BRW editor.
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