Disgraced Adelaide Hills café owner claims she only has $735 left
A failed café owner in the Adelaide Hills says she is down to her last $735, sparking fears creditors will not recover their money.
After being declared bankrupt, Seasonal Garden Cafe owner Silvia Hart says she has no superannuation and just $735 in the bank.
Her other assets included a Toyota Kluger, a $100 homemade trailer and a set of knives worth just $500.
In a statement of affairs filed with the Australian Financial Security Authority, she claimed that she had $200,000 in assets tied up in the empty cafe, which closed suddenly on September 1, including $150,000 in costs spent on the venue’s internal fit-out and garden.
Hart was declared bankrupt after the liquidation of her holding company Maerhuev over an unpaid debt. She is estimated to owe owed at least $1.87 million including a tax bill of $900,000 and superannuation bill of almost $500,000, according to liquidators’ report.
KPMG’s Timothy Mableson said Hart’s business holding company may have been trading insolvent as far back as August 2017.
Hart said in her statement she sold her Hahndorf café for nothing to businessman Matthew Major. She claimed to have sold her Norwood branch to Chris Yap for $10 and gifted the Stirling branch, which closed last month, to her daughter Magdalena Robinson.
In his report, Mableson said the Norwood branch was sold for $50,000 in March 2019 but the proceeds from the sale were not paid into company accounts.
Sheridan Randall, 22nd November 2019
