The Commonwealth Bank have written off more than $5 millon over the Titans Centre of Excellence sale
Peter Badel
The Courier-Mail
September 28, 2012 1:25PM
THE ARL Commission is under mounting pressure to strip Michael Searle of the Titans' NRL licence following revelations the Commonwealth Bank has written-off more than $5 million in bad debt over the Centre of Excellence's firesale.
In another public-relations disaster for the ARLC and the Titans, the CBA - one of Australia's Big Four banks - has suffered a multi-million dollar loss after recouping just over half of the $13.4m it loaned to the Gold Coast's property arm to build the Centre of Excellence.
Majority owner Searle, who has been holidaying in the US just weeks after a trip to Cuba and the Cayman Islands, has repeatedly claimed the Titans' training facility is worth $29 million.
But official real-estate records show The Commonwealth Bank reached settlement on August 29 with Phil Ward and Bob Clark on a $7.5 million sale - just a quarter of the building's purported value.
On the same day, the Centre of Excellence was on-sold to Bond University for $10.65m.
By accepting the terms of the initial sale, the Commonwealth Bank was left with a $5.9m shortfall on the construction loan it provided to the Titans property group, of which Searle is the sole director.
Once accrued-interest payments were factored in, the CBA faced writing-off as much as $7 million.
It is the latest bodyblow for the underfire Searle and the Titans, who were embroiled in a superannuation scandal a fortnight ago after it emerged the club had failed to pay an estimated $300,000 in compulsory super to NRL players and office staff.
Interim ARLC chief-executive Shane Mattiske publicly condemned the Titans over the superannuation bungle, which breached federal statutory laws.
And the knowledge the Titans, one of the code's expansion clubs, has now cost the Commonwealth Bank millions over an ill-fated property transaction is sure to go down like a lead balloon with ARLC chairman John Grant.
Some ARL Commissioners are said to be deeply concerned about the state of the Titans, with former NRL boss David Gallop's handling of the club's issues playing a role in his demise in June.
Grant was a pivotal figure in the ARLC's successful brokering of its $1.025 billion broadcast deal last month.
One of the country's most astute businessmen, Grant is keen to advance the code without the slew of legal, taxation and financial dramas that have beset the Titans over the past two years.
New Titans chief executive David May met with ARLC officials in Sydney three weeks ago and said recently the club's new investment trio Darryl Kelly, Graeme Connor and Anshuman Magazine are determined to rectify the Coast's problems.
"It is absolutely the intention of the Titans, with the new investors on board, to solve all of the issues that are outstanding," May said.
"I don't want to comment on the past, but what I will say is the people investing in the club are people of high regard with a reputation for doing things in the right way and all of us are interested in closing the book on the past in an honest, equitable and decent fashion."
Asked about the meeting with the ARLC, May said: "We talked about a few things but not related to (the unpaid superannuation saga)."
