From todays SMH:
High-profile rugby league players Sonny Bill Williams, Greg Bird and Chris Walker have emerged financially unscathed from the troubles of property developer James Bezzina that have left more than 30 subcontractors owed about $4 million.
Bezzina's ability to repay sponsorship money to three NRL clubs appears increasingly remote as another of his developments, The Mill, a $60 million project in Marrickville - one of the Henry Kaye-spruiked schemes that previously went bust, and which is only 65 per cent complete - went into receivership late last week.
But unlike scores of building subcontractors, financiers and football clubs who look like collectively losing millions as at least three of Bezzina's companies go under, the NRL footballers appear to have escaped just in time.
Williams, who plays for the Bulldogs, Bird, who plays with Cronulla and Walker, who plays for the Roosters, had intended purchasing Dee Why units built by Bezzina's JLB Group. Walker convinced Bezzina several months ago to convert his two-bedroom unit into a three-bedroom unit during construction.
But the players did not sign the contracts after receiving an independent valuation this month that rated the properties about $30,000 to $50,000 below the intended purchase prices.
The intended purchase prices were to be at a discount because Bezzina had been using the players' involvement to induce others to buy into the project in the past couple of months.
The players' agent, Chris Orr, and Bezzina's agents had been haggling about the purchase prices but last week, following a Herald story about Bezzina's finances, the footballers withdrew their offer.
A former Bezzina employee told the Herald yesterday: "James would offer the footballers a very, very good discount on property because of his connections to the NRL."
But those connections no longer exist. Penrith are owed $220,000 for shorts sponsorship, Cronulla hundreds of thousands for sleeve and ground sponsorship and Manly nearly $10,000, by Bezzina's JLB Group. All three clubs are preparing to write off their sponsorship money.
Mark Robinson of PPB, the receiver of The Mill, said JLB Group appeared to owe subcontractors on the site at least $2.8 million.
He said Macquarie Bank had made payments directly to JLB Group before the receiver's appointment, but a significant portion of these payments had not been passed on to subcontractors.
But Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union official Tim Vollmer said the debt was much higher, about $4m, and 30 subcontractors would start a picket on the Marrickville site this morning.
Bezzina's ambitious development sites at Liverpool, involving 96 units, and a second Dee Why project, involving 20 prestige apartments, are being sold by administrators. Bezzina's $5m waterfront home at Cronulla is also in the sights of receivers, but there won't be much spare cash. The house has two registered mortgages totalling $6.3m and four caveats on it totalling $1.116m.
Penrith captain Craig Gower, who was briefly a director in JLB Developments, the parent company of JLB Group, has been removed from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission records as a director of that company.
Gower's manager Greg Willett, whose office is listed at ASIC as the registered office of JLB Projects and JLB Developments, said the inclusion of Gower's name as a director was a mistake.
