This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
ABOUT $200 million worth of secured creditor claims will be made against Jean Nassif’s Toplace Group, which accumulated $1.5 billion of development sites and real estate investments, as the Sydney developer remains overseas and wanted for fraud.
Since the building arm of Toplace Group fell into administration, there have been 65 subsidiaries go under. All have been placed under the control of administrators Suelen McCallum and Antony Resnick of DVT Group.
The administrators told the first creditors’ meeting yesterday there are 75 secured creditors, while there are around 500 creditors in total, including bank, non-bank lenders, contractors and employees.
Toplace Group has $1.5 billion worth of development sites and real estate investments, the Australian Financial Review reported.
In March, Nassif tipped a 1.64-hectare industrial parcel near Sydney Airport at 146 and 154 O’Riordan Street to the market with expectations of more than $100 million. He bought the latter site, at 1.4 hectares, for $32 million from Dexus in 2015, and had obtained a permit for 96 hotel rooms and 444 serviced apartments for the property.
In 2021, Nassif sold a Parramatta site to developer Tim Gurner and real estate financier Qualitas’s built-to-rent platform for around $70 million, and also sold a 7.65-hectare western Sydney logistics site to Goodman Group for $140 million, netting a $75 million profit.
An arrest warrant was issued last month for Nassif over an alleged large-scale fraud relating to pre-sale documents for a $150 million loan from Westpac for his company’s 900-unit Skyview Apartments project in Castle Hill. He has been overseas since December and was recently believed to be travelling between Lebanon and south east Asia.
Nassif’s daughter, Sydney lawyer Ashlyn Nassif, has been charged for allegedly falsifying a $10.5 million pre-condition to secure the Westpac loan. She is also being investigated by the same strike force as her father, and is not allowed to contact him as part of her bail conditions.
Jean Nassif is the director of two companies linked to the Castle Hill construction site in Sydney’s north west, 51 OCHR and JKN Finance, which fell into receivership in March. Two of the project’s five buildings have been completed. Late last year, it had its building licence permanently revoked and Nassif was banned from holding a building licence for 10 years after the NSW Department of Fair Trading uncovered over 40 alleged defects in residential developments, including Skyview.
Nassif and Toplace earlier this month had the suspension of their licences reinstated by the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
In the middle of 2021, Toplace had agreed to be liable for any current and future defects across the Skyview development for 20 years in exchange for the NSW building commissioner lifting a prohibition order following audits on the development by NSW Fair Trading.
Nassif and Toplace recently became the focus of a NSW parliamentary committee after Liberal MP Ray Williams made a speech in parliament last year in which he alleged members of the party were “paid significant funds” to install new councillors within Hills Shire to support Toplace’s development applications.
Nassif has reportedly been travelling between Lebanon, Singapore and the Philippines, according to Nine media, which also reported that Nassif does not want to be arrested at an airport and would rather “front up to authorities on his own terms”. He has been borrowing millions of dollars in the meantime, using properties including a waterfront home in Chiswick that he bought in 2015 for $4.9 million as security.
Nassif became a viral social media sensation in 2019 when he uploaded a video of him presenting his wife with a yellow Lamborghini on Valentine’s Day, infamously saying, “Congratulations, Mrs Nassif. You like?”. The phrase was mocked and imitated by thousands of people.
