New hands for Becco
ONE-TIME prime Melbourne CBD power venue, Becco, has quietly changed hands.
Vendor Simon Hartley, the third of three original partners who launched the restaurant, has subsequently put his Olio Santo Pty Ltd, of which he is sole director, into voluntary liquidation with debts of $1.8 million, including $930,000 to the CBA, $218,000 to preferred creditors (employees) and $676,000 to unsecured creditors including the ATO ($440,000).
According to the liquidator's circular to creditors last month, preferred (employee) creditors total $218,354, including $164,775 to Hartley. Creditors have been notified by liquidator Wayne Benton, of Sellers Muldoon Benton.
In a Liquidator's Statement included in minutes of a creditors' meeting on January 23, provided to the Australian Securities & Investments Commission, Benton says: "The sale price was essentially fixed at an amount to satisfy the company's obligations to priority (employee) and secured (Commonwealth Bank) creditors at circa $1.4m. What concerns me is that the sale was to a related party (stepfather and mother of Mr Hartley) and that it was not subject to a public offering."
The minutes show that the meeting was told by Hartley that an offer for the business of $600,000 in July 2013 was rejected.
Becco, launched by then business partners Hartley, Elizabeth Egan and Richard Lodge in 1996, quickly became a fixture. Neither Lodge, who now runs Melbourne CBD trattoria Lupino with former Becco chef Marco Lori, nor Egan, Hartley's former wife and a regular on the Seven Network's My Kitchen Rules, have been involved in the restaurant or its vendor, Olio Santo Pty Ltd, for several years.
The new owner and licensee is a company, Gnocchi Pty Ltd, with two directors: Melburnian Peter Holland and Brisbane resident Gordon Rodney Fraser Gibson. However, Hartley continues to operate the restaurant.
"Becco is open Tuesday to Saturday, and I cannot see this changing for some time," said Hartley in response to our inquiries about the future of the restaurant. "I'm generally here most shifts."
Source: The Australian - 4 February 2014
