Bond’s Brewing Assets Put Into Receivership

The core of Australian entrepreneur Alan Bond’s empire, his brewing assets, was put into receivership on Friday, and the company said the move by disgruntled creditors could sink Bond’s entire media and property group.

Bankers to Bond Corp. Holdings Ltd.’s Australian breweries, its key asset, put Fourex, Swan, and Bond’s other Australian beer operations into receivership.

Bond Corp. had said it planned to sell the brewing assets to a subsidiary for $1.6 billion ($2 billion Australian).

But debt-laden Bond Corp. said after the ruling by Victoria’s Supreme Court on Friday that the bank’s move could topple the entire group.

“It’s possible,” Peter Lucas, a Bond director, told Reuters.

The company plans to fight the court decision to appoint receivers, requested by a group of banks led by National Australia Bank Ltd.

Bond’s auditors have said most of the group’s $4.9-billion ($6.58 billion Australian) debt could be paid if the company breached terms of a loan to its breweries.

But Lucas said: “Action by a banker to whom no money is owing could conceivably, due to cross-collateralization, bring the whole of the Bond Corp. down.”

He said the receivership could also trigger immediate repayment of a large part of the $1.23 billion ($1.65 billion Australian) in convertible notes the group has on issue.

Lucas said that although the breweries had met all of their loan payments, the bank had made its application on grounds that there had been a serious deterioration in the business.

“That’s nonsense,” he said.

The bank refused to say why it had acted.

The receivership appointment overtook a Bond rescue plan announced earlier to sell the breweries to its 58%-owned Bell Resources Ltd.--its third attempt to sell them this year.

Bell Resources Ltd. has already paid Bond Corp. a $900-million ($1.2 billion Australian) deposit for the breweries and is ranked third in line behind the National Australia Bank syndicate and the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corp. to claim them as security.

“It’s all going to get very, very messy,” said one Perth broker who did not wish to be identified.

“Bond Corp.’s very sick, and Bell Resources isn’t going to come out of it very well at all either.”