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Bargain Penrith Panthers asset deal nets $10m
- The Australian
- 12:00AM September 1, 2017
- NICK TABAKOFF
Property developer Lou Zivanovic is set to make the windfall profit from the cemetery development, after the NSW government this week approved his sale of Panthers Wallacia golf club to the church, which will build a 60,000-plot cemetery. The deal has raised an outcry from Panthers members and Facebook groups, and questions for the Penrith board and management about the processes under which Panthers Wallacia was sold to Mr Zivanovic less than three years ago for what has been dubbed a “bargain-basement price”.
Land title searches show Mr Zivanovic’s private company, Cabe Investments No. 21 Pty Ltd bought the 42.5ha Wallacia property from the Penrith Rugby League Club in 2014 for $2.7m. The Australian understands Mr Zivanovic has agreed to sell it for between $13m and $14m to the Catholic Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust, following this week’s approval.
Mr Zivanovic made headlines this year over his role as a “fixer” for the club. The multi-millionaire property developer brokered a $50,000 abortion deal with an ex-girlfriend of Panthers forward Bryce Cartwright, after she became pregnant to him. Days after it was exposed, Penrith football supremo Phil Gould seemed to distance the club from Zivanovic at a hastily convened press conference, saying: “Lou isn’t around the club,” and adding he had no “official role” there.
The Australian can reveal that Mr Zivanovic, who played for the Panthers as a forward in the 1980s, is profiting on several fronts from his close association with the Panthers.
After Mr Zivanovic bought the Panthers Wallacia property in October 2014, he leased it back to the Panthers. Land title searches show that the Panthers actually sold the property to Mr Zivanovic at a loss, despite Sydney’s strong property market. Just over a year earlier, in August 2013, the club had purchased the same golf course for $3.16m, $460,000 more than the price it was sold to Mr Zivanovic.
One agent from the area, who wished to remain anonymous, said he believed that, on land value, the site was worth anything up to $18m. “Some of it is flood- affected, but nonetheless at anything from $13m to $18m, it would be an absolute steal, given the money that (the Catholic cemeteries body) will make out of it in the years to come,” the agent said. “If you do a rough calculation of 60,000 burial plots worth, say, $5000 each, that’s $300m. That says it all really.”
The sale of the course to the church to create a cemetery has met with anger and tough questions from some Panthers members. One ex-Wallacia Golf Club advisory board member and current Panthers member said: “The course was sold at an apparent bargain price to Lou Zivanovic, and he is now selling it for an eight-figure sum. The money that Zivanovic has made should belong to the club members.
“But the members need to know: what was the due process in selling the land so cheaply to him in the first place, and was it put out to a tender process?”
Panthers chief executive Brian Fletcher last night defended the price of the club’s 2014 sale to Mr Zivanovic. “To my knowledge, it was the right price at the time,” he said. “I’m sure the club got as much money at the time as the property was worth, because it’s not zoned for anything. In hindsight, you’d like to sell it today and get whatever you’re saying it’s gone for.”
Asked if the deal had been put to tender, Mr Fletcher, who was not at the club at the time, said he could not comment because the solicitor who handled the transfer was on leave. But he said the deal was put to the Panthers annual general meeting in 2014, and “members passed it”.
Calls to and messages left for Mr Zivanovic yesterday were not returned. The Australian is not suggesting that Mr Zivanovic did anything inappropriate in acquiring the property and his plans to sell it.
What has made the $2.7m Mr Zivanovic paid the Panthers for the golf course appear an even better deal is the fact the Panthers have continued to pay him large amounts of money to lease and maintain the course.
The Australian understands the club has been paying a total of $198,000 a year to lease the course back. This comprises a $180,000 annual payment to Mr Zivanovic’s Cabe Investments No. 21, plus 10 per cent GST.
The former Wallacia Golf Club advisory board member claims it is the Penrith Rugby League Club, and not Mr Zivanovic, that is footing the bill for hundreds of thousands of dollars more each year in course maintenance costs.
Cabe Investments No. 21 was believed to be looking initially to turn the golf course into a residential development that would have been built into the golf course and surrounding areas.
A January 2015 letter from the Panthers’ then-chief executive, Warren Wilson, to members stated only that the club had sold the course “to a property developer”. It did not name Mr Zivanovic as the purchaser.
Mr Wilson said in the letter that “should the developer proceed with a development on the site, the golf course will remain, and the developer will also construct a new clubhouse which will continue to be operated by Panthers”. More than two years later, no new clubhouse has been built.
The NSW government’s approval of the cemetery has also been met with protest from the broader community, which loudly made its opposition known at a Penrith council meeting this week. The council unanimously opposed the plan to turn Panthers Wallacia into a cemetery, saying it would “irreparably damage the unique landscape and heritage qualities and values” of Wallacia.
Mr Fletcher said the Panthers directors were evaluating the deal, adding the board was “trying to look after the Wallacia members the best they possibly can.”
Club members and former Panthers Wallacia board members have a broader concern: the ongoing favourable treatment being doled out to Mr Zivanovic in relation to Panthers assets.
An investigation by The Australian in March revealed extensive financial links between Mr Zivanovic and the Panthers Group, the parent company of the NRL club, despite Gould’s protestations that the developer was not “around the club”.
The Australian’s investigation confirmed Mr Zivanovic as both a key benefactor and beneficiary of the club.
Mr Zivanovic is responsible for what is set to become the Panthers’ biggest property development project: an apartment development and separate 3300sq m retail complex known as ESQ 1818, worth hundreds of millions of dollars and due to start construction next June.
“Cabe … has submitted a plan for the development of a minimum 512 apartment complex with commercial facilities,” Mr Fletcher states in the Panthers’ latest annual report.
Australian Securities & Investments Commission documents show Mr Zivanovic is the major beneficiary of the success of both Cabe and ESQ 1818.
A study conducted for Cabe in April last year by global technical consultancy GHD stated that the development was much larger than noted in the annual report. In fact it contained 859 apartments spread over 11 new buildings, resulting in “1700 new residents” for the Penrith area.
Cabe is advertising ESQ 1818 on its website as “Sydney’s newest urban lifestyle village coming soon!”
Although Penrith officials such as Gould have played down the club’s relationship with Mr Zivanovic, his corporate involvement with the club has involved some of the Panthers’ junior representative teams. He has also been involved with numerous other sponsorships related to both the football club and the broader Panthers group, and has dipped into his pocket to fund prizes for charity auctions.
A photo posted on Mr Zivanovic’s Facebook page in May 2013 showed the apparent warmth of his relationship with both Gould and the club.
The photo shows the property developer and Gould with their arms affectionately around each other, and is autograph by the former NSW State of Origin coach with the message: “Thanks mate for everything you do for Panthers!”
Mr Zivanovic’s Facebook response was: “Nice one …. Thanks Gus…!!!”
Mr Zivanovic was also founding of “Panthers on the Prowl”, the club’s charity and community outreach program, which until this year provided an extra connection between the businessman and Gould as directors.
ASIC records show that three days after The Australian’s investigation, Mr Zivanovic and Gould simultaneously resigned from the program’s board.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/spo...m/news-story/3728b5cce9d3f3b330fec983530d7f3b
