540 companies, $400k missed rent, and a former Labor minister’s intervention: The final days of collapsed developer

Thousands of home buyers and contractors owed money by the collapsed developer Bathla will need to wait weeks to find out whether they will get any money back or end up with completed homes, as administrators wade through the accounts of more than 540 separate companies.

During an urgent hearing in the Supreme Court on Thursday, corporate restructuring agency Teneo revealed Bathla had about 220 construction projects running concurrently when it entered voluntary administration on Tuesday, and about 45 of them were in the construction phase.

Teneo’s barrister Jack Hynes successfully applied for an extension of time to attempt to raise $40 million. He told the court this was the “projected cash burn” until the end of the year and would allow administrators several weeks to properly assess the company’s situation.

Bathla, one of the state’s most prolific and controversial developers, entered administration this week leaving hundreds of home buyers, particularly in the north-west and south-west urban fringes of Sydney and in the Illawarra, in the lurch.

Hynes said the “extremely large and complex external administration” process over “a relatively complex business structure” was made more difficult by the fact that Bathla’s business was spread over 542 special purpose vehicle companies, making it difficult to track.

“The secured debt goes across 30 different lenders and is in the order of something like $3.3 billion,” he told the court. “There are unsecured creditors in addition to that.”

As well as those who purchased off-the-plan homes, Bathla’s creditors also include companies that had leased it machinery for its worksites, unpaid tradespeople, and landlords of sites including Bathla’s Girraween headquarters.

For that property, the developer is $400,000 in arrears, Justice Ashley Black was told.

The figures were revealed hours after new company documents were filed with the corporate regulator, showing the company had engaged former NSW Labor planning minister Frank Sartor to provide planning advice weeks before the company collapsed.

Sartor contacted Teneo on behalf of Bathla Group to “assist with the development of a strategic communication strategy” on August 7.

Two weeks later, Bathla’s legal advisers requested Teneo commence contingency planning for a potential voluntary administration of the major Sydney developer. On Tuesday, 18 days later, Bathla and its hundreds of related entities entered voluntary administration.

Sartor was a major player in NSW Labor in the late 1990s and early 2000s, serving 12 years as lord mayor of the City of Sydney before entering NSW parliament in 2003 and working as planning minister from 2005 to 2008.

Sartor told the Herald on Thursday that he had only been engaged to assist Bathla since the start of the month and was “not totally surprised” when he got the call this week that the company had entered voluntary administration, saying it was probably the right thing to do.

“They [Bathla] mean to do the right thing, they just made the mistake of overextending,” he said. “Teneo is very competent and I’m sure they’ll find them a pathway to restoration.”

Sartor said with so much housing at stake “it would be a pity” if the company couldn’t be saved.

The revelation comes a day after NSW Labor Premier Chris Minns described Bathla’s collapse as a “serious issue”.

“We understand that developer was significantly through a range of developments in western Sydney, so we have to think creatively about who is going to step in and complete the projects,” he said on Wednesday. “It’s not going to be easy.

“Obviously, we will talk with the [company’s administrators] and there is also a role to play to ensure that other large-scale volume builders don’t fall into the same problem.”