Former Equititrust boss Mark McIvor lists Popov-designed Gold Coast home
{yoogallery src=[images/stories/august16mcivor]}
The luxury Gold Coast abode of the recently resigned managing director of besieged Equititrust, Mark McIvor, has been listed for September 18 auction.
It’s a two-storey riverfront home designed by Sydney-based architect Alex Popov on Cronin Island.
It sits on a 1,736-square-metre block with 50-metre frontage onto the Nerang River.
McIvor, now managing director of Landsolve Partners, built the house on the $1 million block, which he bought from a Tokyo couple, Kensuke Haniuda and Nayumi Yoshida, in 1994.
The island’s highest sale was $8 million in 2004, when an older-style house on 2,300 square metres was sold. Prestige prices on the Gold Coast got a fillip last weekend with a $6,725,000 riverfront sale at Paradise Waters, the highest riverfront sale for three years.
McIvor, who founded the Gold Coast's own merchant bank, Equititrust, in 1993, also owns two other houses on the island. They cost $3.6 million in 2002 and $1.7 million in 2003.
There are just 33 houses on the island, including the much-contested home that is in the name of Nicole Perrin, the former wife of the penniless former Billabong surfwear boss Matthew Perrin. Nicole Perrin is fighting a court battle to stop the Commonwealth Bank repossessing her beloved family home, as she claims her husband forged her signature without her knowledge to borrow $13.5 million against the house when it was valued at $15 million in 2008.
Michael Kollosche, the Ray White Broadbeach agent, has the listing.
Equititrust, which became known for using a Roman voussoir arch as its marketing logo to suggest structural stability, was among the many unlisted mortgage funds to take a battering following the 2008 financial crisis.
In April 2011 Equititrust confirmed it had stopped paying income distributions to unit holders in two funds housing more than $300 million worth of assets as it accelerated its debt repayments to its banks.
The company's financial accounts in 2010 revealed that one of its financiers, the Bank of Scotland (HBOS Australia), had demanded a restructure of its business and merger of the two major funds, in return for an extension of its loan.
The $20 million it owed HBOS at that stage was to become repayable by New Year's Eve last year if the conditions were not met.
Equititrust investors have been through hell with their money frozen for more than three years, with interest payments stopped and the value of their units substantially devalue, and with no end in sight.
Lawyers Piper Alderman continues to investigate the merits of a unit holder class action against Equititrust Limited.
The Equititrust board was restructured in June.
“Just as we are unaware of any other fund manager putting the extent of personal financial support behind investors’ interests that Mark McIvor and his family have with the substantial subordinated investment in EIF, we are also unaware of any other fund manager who has installed a totally independent board to the RE as a further step to ensure proper corporate governance where there could be the possibility of a conflict of interest,” the board announcement noted when McIvor stood down.
“Mark McIvor, the founder of Equititrust and through his family companies the largest unit holder in the Fund, will now focus on exploring a range of opportunities and potential proposals.
“Mark is fully supportive of the restructured board,” it said.
It said McIvor had the full support of the board after his resignation was offered effective from Monday, June 13 2011.
Equititrust has recently repaid $9 million of its $35 million finance facility, but the scheme continues as a non-liquid fund.
Hardship payments of $1,564,151 were made to investors during the period.
