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The bankrupt, the fugitive and the billion-dollar Toplace collapse
By Kate McClymont and Ben Cubby
An undischarged bankrupt was instrumental in landing his insolvency firm the lucrative rights to be administrator of fugitive Jean Nassif’s failed property empire, which has collapsed owing more than $1.24 billion, including $88.5 million to suppliers and tradespeople.
The scale of the collapse of Nassif’s Toplace group has been outlined in documents tendered in the Federal Court this week by administrators dVT Group and details how secured creditors – banks with mortgages over Toplace properties, as well as offshore lenders including mysterious entities in the tax haven of the British Virgin Islands – are owed $1 billion.
Riad Tayeh and Jean Nassif and Toplace’s Skyview development in Castle Hill.
Unsecured creditors have claimed an estimated $244 million.
Court documents reveal that Riad Tayeh, who founded dVT Group, helped secure the administrators’ role for dVT. Tayeh, 59, was declared bankrupt in June last year, owing $5.4 million.
Tayeh, a consultant to his firm, and his colleague Antony Resnick attended key meetings with Toplace executives in the days leading up to dVT’s appointment.
Attending one of those meetings on June 19 was Nassif’s daughter Ashlyn, 29, whose legal practising certificate is suspended while she fights charges over a $150 million fraud relating to Toplace’s Skyview development in Castle Hill.
Riad Tayeh was declared bankrupt in June last year.
Days earlier, a warrant was issued for the arrest of her father Jean Nassif, 55, who left Sydney for Dubai in December last year. The father and daughter are alleged to have falsified sales contracts to secure a $150 million Westpac loan.
Resnick and another dVT partner, Suelen McCallum, were announced as voluntary administrators to the Toplace group on July 7. Earlier that day, “a resolution passed by [Toplace Pty Ltd’s] sole director, Jean Nassif,” via email, appointed the dVT pair to handle what may turn out to be one of the state’s largest corporate collapses.
This week Resnick filed an affidavit in the Federal Court, which indicated that while the Toplace Group is worth about $1.47 billion on paper, the group’s debts were approximately the same amount.
According to its website, “Toplace Group’s founder Jean Nassif has delivered approximately 30,000 residential homes, shopping centres and commercial suites all located in Sydney.”
Although Toplace boasts of its “remarkable buildings [which] are delivered in response to evolving design and lifestyle trends”, a number of owners’ corporations have lodged claims totalling almost $124 million to fix serious defects in Toplace buildings. Court documents show administrators are investigating the ongoing development of more than 3000 residential apartments.
Ashlyn Nassif departs Surry Hills Police Station in March.Credit: Brook Mitchell
Further complicating the administrators’ task is unravelling intercompany loans between Nassif’s entities that total $319 million. In addition, a staff member has indicated there may be another $400 million in loans with Nassif entities not in administration.
Administrators said an “apparent intermingling of financial records” made it difficult to unpick the web of debt, and noted Toplace’s books and financial records had not been properly updated since 2021.
A further complication may be a potential asset-split of Nassif and his wife Nissy, who is described in court documents as “the estranged wife”.
The Federal Court has granted dVT another six months to unravel the financial wreckage of Nassif’s empire.
Images from Nissy Nassif’s Instagram page showing her and husband Jean Nassif and her prized yellow Lamborghini.Credit: Instagram
According to documents filed with ASIC, dVT maintained that the meetings Tayeh and Resnick attended before their appointment “will not influence our ability” to administer the Toplace group “in an objective and impartial manner”.
Resnick and McCallum also said that there were no other relationships relevant to creditors assessing their independence.
Jean Nassif is wanted over an outstanding warrant in relation to alleged fraud-related offences.Credit: Police Media
However, the Herald can reveal that, even though he is bankrupt, ASIC documents continue to show that Tayeh remains a director of several companies, one of which also lists Jean Nassif’s brother Sarkis Nassif as a fellow director.
Both men are founding directors of the Lebanese Christian Charity Foundation and both remain on the board, according to ASIC documents.
Jean Nassif and his older brother Sarkis have previously been in business together and court documents show Ashlyn Nassif and her uncle Sarkis hold a power of attorney for Jean Nassif. Tayeh said that he wasn’t aware nor did Sarkis ever disclose to him that Sarkis held his brother’s power of attorney.
Sarkis, who is also a major property developer, is not accused of any wrongdoing.
Tayeh denied he held any current directorships, including on the charity. “I have resigned from and I am not a director of any company or organisation, nor have I attended any meeting in that capacity since May last year,” Tayeh told this masthead.
Under the Corporations Act, bankrupt people are disqualified from managing corporations or being directors or company secretaries. Penalties for breaching these rules include fines of up to $8500 and up to one year’s imprisonment.
Although Tayeh said he had resigned all directorships following his bankruptcy, corporate records show him remaining a director of nine companies.
One of the companies of which Tayeh is still listed as a director is Kollakorn – which previously had as a fellow director Sevag Chalabian, a former lawyer recently sentenced to a maximum of 12 years’ prison for laundering $24 million in blackmail money linked to the Plutus Payroll fraud.
“The matter of my bankruptcy is again a matter of public record,” he said in a statement. “I have nothing to hide and, as painful as the decade-long court case that preceded it was both personally and professionally, I am one of thousands of Australians who each year face that challenge.
“It does not rule us out of continuing to proceed with our lives.”
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