one of owner John Kosseris’ companies being placed into administration.

Belmorgan Property Development announced on Wednesday it had appointed an external administrator.

The company, which changed its name to Opilda on August 5, owes about $1.4 million to traders, more than $1 million to the Office of State Revenue and more than $7 million to the Australian Taxation Office, the Illawarra Mercury reported yesterday.

The administrator, Michael Jones, said assets of other Belmorgan companies could

be dragged into the administration, depending on the investigation.

Mr Kosseris has tried for years to develop the heritage-listed former RAAF base, which he bought in 2003 for $4.65 million. It is owned by SPV2, another company in the Belmorgan group.

Dubbo City Council has rejected two development applications for the RAAF base because both fell outside council rules.

Mr Kosseris is now waiting on approval from the NSW Department of Planning for a plan for the base.

“We are still dealing with council, but we couldn’t wait any longer and applied to the Government to look into the situation to have something done. They seem supportive,” he said.

Mr Kosseris believed he would “have an answer in a couple of weeks”, but was still prepared to take council to the Land and Environment Court as “a last resort”.

“I would hate to resort to spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of our and ratepayers’ money,” he said.

Selling the former RAAF base as Opilda goes into administration is not under consideration.

Two notifications of court action to wind up Opilda have been filed with the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC).

And about a month after the name change, Mr Kosseris removed himself as director - to avoid defaulting all of Belmorgan’s companies, he said.

“We’ve been notified by our solicitors that if I was to stay director of any company that goes into voluntary administration or liquidation, it could trigger line of default across all companies,” he said.

“We have a group of companies that is large, a lot of projects going on at present, and we didn’t want to jeopardise that.”

According to documents filed with ASIC and sighted by the Daily Liberal, Opilda’s new director is Terry Post, who lists his residential address as Dubbo.

Mr Post is an “associate” of Belmorgan and a “friend of the family”, Mr Kosseris said.

Mr Jones told the Daily Liberal there are three applications to wind the company up.

“We will call a creditors meeting to consider the company’s future,” he said. “If a proposal can be put to creditors, it will be - it’s then a matter of whether the creditors accept it or wind up the company. If no proposal is put, it goes into liquidation.”

The creditors’ meeting is on October 3. Opilda held no assets, Mr Kosseris said.

The Daily Liberal understands a report concerning the former RAAF base is going to the next Dubbo City Council meeting.

lynton.grace@ruralpress.com