Monday, February 17, 2025

Melbourne's STH BNK project developer collapses owing creditors AUD 100 Million-Maybank financed STH BNK and other projects by developer Beulah , exposure likely to be in excess of AUD 100 Million

by Ganesh Sahathevan

Jiaheng Chan and Maybank Corporate Banking Managing Director Caroline Teoh

The Edge reported in June 2022:

KHK Group and Melbourne property developer Beulah are set to launch what it dubs “Australia’s most anticipated project”, STH BNK By Beulah in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on June 4 and 5.

Beulah managing director Jiaheng Chan said the property developer is thrilled to have received support from KHK and Malayan Banking Bhd (Maybank) — who financed the project.

On 16 February 2025 The Australian reported:

The development management company behind the soured scheme to build Australia’s tallest mixed-use project owes more than $100m and has payments outstanding to top designers, consultants and lawyers, according to documents lodged with the corporate regulator.

The company, BSSPV Pty Ltd, collapsed into administration last Tuesday and is now in the hands of accountants Pitcher Partners, leaving the future of a planned $2.7bn complex in Melbourne’s Southbank under a cloud.

The project’s developer, Beulah International, is attempting to resuscitate the project, seeking a huge equity injection to get one of the two planned super-tall towers started.

The STH BNK project is not however the only project of the the KHK Fajarbaru Group that Maybank has financed . The Malaysian Reserve reported in 2018:

FAJARBARU Builder Group Bhd, Beulah International and KHK Group Ltd have secured funding of close to A$100 million (about RM300 million) from Malayan Banking Bhd (Maybank) for a joint luxury apartment project in Australia.In conjunction with the financing initiative, a facility agreement was signed between Maybank and SPV 320 Queen Street Pte Ltd in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

Maybankk also financed Beulah's Gardenhill project (see photo above, stores below)

Beulah managing director Jiaheng Chan is the son of Fajarbaru executive chairman Tan Sri Chan Kong Choy. Jianheng co-founded Beulah with his wife Adelene Teh (aka Teh En Yee), whose father is KHK owner Tan Sri Kong Hon Kong (aka Teh Kean Ming ,former MD of IJM Corp).

END

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STH BNK by Beulah launch event to be held in Malaysia on June 4 to 5

By Izzul Ikram / theedgemarkets.com

01 Jun 2022, 10:38 pm

KUALA LUMPUR (June 1): KHK Group and Melbourne property developer Beulah are set to launch what it dubs “Australia’s most anticipated project”, STH BNK By Beulah in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on June 4 and 5.

In a joint statement on Wednesday (June 1), KHK and Beulah said the launch event for Australia’s tallest building is to be held at the Four Seasons Kuala Lumpur on June 4 to 5, from 2pm to 6pm.

The pair noted that the event comes on the back of an unprecedented sales launch in Melbourne a few weeks ago, where more than RM1.2 billion in apartment sales were achieved in one day — which made it one of the strongest single-day apartment sales in Australia.

“The impressive resultscome as Melbourne’s property market continues to strengthen; vacancy rates, reaching less than 2%, are at an all-time low post-pandemic and median house prices continued to increase throughout the pandemic.

“Further, the unemployment rate is at an all-time low since the beginning of the pandemic, and credit ratings are amongst the best in the world,” they added.

KHK and Beulah noted that there are generous stamp duty concessions available that buyers can take advantage of, which includes the city of Melbourne stamp duty savings on new homes.

“Eligible purchasers, including investors, may be eligible for a 50% stamp duty waiver under the scheme when purchasing a brand-new apartment at STH BNK By Beulah, but only if the property is purchased before June 30, 2022,” they said.

Beulah managing director Jiaheng Chan said the property developer is thrilled to have received support from KHK and Malayan Banking Bhd (Maybank) — who financed the project.

“Beulah is proud to be a partner with KHK and Maybank to bring this development to Malaysia,'' he said.

Meanwhile, KHK chairman Tan Sri Kong Hon Kong said he looks forward to offering an unprecedented opportunity that is set to push the boundaries of property development.

“We are thrilled to be able to offer Malaysians the exclusive opportunity to buy into Australia’s tallest tower,” he said.

Edited ByKamarul Azhar

Fajarbaru, partners get RM300m facility from Maybank for Aussie project

from left : Fajabaru Builder Group Bhd Group Executive Director Dato Sri Eric Kuan, Maybank Corporate Banking Managing Director Michael Oh-Lau Chong Jin and Beulah International Managing Director Jiaheng Chan at the Signing Ceremony between Paragon and Maybank at Kuala Lumpur (Pic By Muhd Amin Naharul/TMR)

Malaysian company keeping an eye out for opportunities to venture further abroad in the future

By NG MIN SHEN / Pic By MUHD AMIN NAHARUL

The three parties are the developers behind Paragon, a project situated in Melbourne with a gross development value (GDV) of A$200 million.

It is led by Melbourne-based developer Beulah International, which has the largest stake at 42.78%, followed by KHK Group with a 35% stake and Fajarbaru with the remaining 22.22%.

“We believe that the Australian property development market will continue to provide a healthy income for Fajarbaru in the coming years, driven by growing demand for Australian properties from the influx of new arrivals and the local market for high quality Australian properties,” Fajarbaru group ED Datuk Seri Eric Kuan Khian Leng said at the signing ceremony yesterday.

He said the group, which is mainly involved in construction, timber and property development, will continue to look to Australia in the short to medium term for its property segment, while keeping an eye out for opportunities to venture further abroad in the future.

The project is the second development undertaken in partnership between Fajarbaru and Beulah International, following the completion of their first jointly-developed project, Gardenhill in Melbourne, with a GDV of A$77 million.

Maybank corporate banking MD Michael Oh-Lau Chong Jin said the success of Gardenhill, which was also funded by the bank, was the main driver in the lender’s backing of the new Paragon project.

According to Beulah International MD Chan Jiaheng, the project, which will be home to Australia’s first elevated indoor forest and 227 luxury apartments across 48 levels, has already secured sales of close to 90%, of which about 30% are Malaysian purchasers.

“Our target is to achieve 100% sales by the end of the construction period. Currently, our strategy is to continue to sell with minimum marketing costs because we have two years to achieve 100%.

“There’s no business benefit to achieve 100% right now,” Chan said.

Construction has commenced, with project completion expected by the end of the third quarter of 2020 (3Q20) or early 4Q20, Chan added.

As at 3.41pm yesterday, shares of Fajarbaru were up four sen, or 8.64%, at 44 sen, giving it a market capitalisation of RM164.02 million. The stock saw 4.32 million shares changing hands.

Maybank rose 27 sen or 2.81%, to RM9.87, giving the country’s largest bank by assets a market capitalisation of RM107.56 billion, with 10.16 million shares traded.

Fajarbaru Builder plans RM728m property projects

Posted on28 Jul 2015

by Sarah

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Loan deal: Chan and Maybank corporate banking MD Caroline Teoh at the agreement signing for a bridging loan facility for the Gardenhill condo project in Melbourne.

PETALING JAYA: Small-cap contractor Fajarbaru Builder Group Bhd has property projects with a gross development value (GDV) of RM728mil in Malaysia.

Besides that, its first overseas joint-venture project in Melbourne, which has a GDV of A$77mil (RM215.6mil), has seen a take-up rate of 80%.

The construction player, with a market cap of RM139.77mil, plans to launch three projects in the Klang Valley and Malacca by the end of 2016. These include a condominium project in Puchong with a GDV of RM400mil, a serviced apartment project in Sentul with a GDV of RM250mil and serviced apartments in Malacca with a GDV of RM78mil.

Its property division manager Yau Tuck Wai said it would launch the Puchong project by year-end, the Sentul project in the first quarter of 2016 and the Malacca project in the third quarter of 2016.

At the signing ceremony of a loan facility agreement with Maybank, Yau said the 136-unit luxurious condominium project at the Doncaster suburb of Melbourne would be completed by end-2016 or early-2017. The 0.6 acre was bought a year ago for RM20.61mil.

Its finance director Ooi Leng Chooi said the 51%-owned Fajarbaru-Beulah (Melbourne) Pty Ltd, that was working on the Gardenhill project in Melbourne, would contribute positively to its earnings once it was completed. For its third quarter ended March 31, close to 80% of its revenue came from construction activities.

Its current unbilled order book is RM450mil.

Fajarbaru-Beulah executive director Chan Jiaheng expects the construction of the project to start in six weeks’ time, while the whole project would take about 15 months to complete.

“We’re finalising the contractors now,” he said, adding that buyers of the high-end condos comprised a mix of foreign and local investors as well as buyers for own-stay.

Ooi declined to comment on the amount of loan taken for the Australian project, but conceded that it would inevitably impact its gearing. The firm’s total borrowings was at RM46.97mil as at March 31, while cash and cash equivalents stood at RM36.9mil.

He said the facility was in Australian dollars to mitigate currency exchange risks.

The units are priced at about A$700 per sq ft.

For the third quarter ended March 31, net profit fell 18.1% to RM782,000 compared with RM955,000 a year earlier. Revenue for the same quarter surged 93.1% to RM106.03mil from RM54.92mil a year ago.

As for its first nine months, earnings jumped 35.34% to RM3.37mil from RM2.49mil in the previous corresponding period, while revenue rose 28.3% to RM274.66mil from RM214.1mil.

Want to contribute articles to StarProperty.my? Email: editor@starproperty.my

Saturday, February 15, 2025

The Chief Justice NSW Andrew Bell's public condemnation of the College Of Law PLT provides an avenue for PLT students to seek a refund -PLT course and certificate are worthless without the Chief Justice's imprimatur

by Ganesh Sahathevan

Andrew Bell has been described as ‘one of the most brilliant in a generation’

The College of Law Australia's Practical Legal Training (PLT) course has been condemned by the Chief Justice NSW Andrew Bell, for offering a PLT course that is not worth the money. Bell has now embarked on a campaign to reform the PLT.

Bell is not only Chief Justice but also chairman of he MSW Legal Profession Admission Board that accredits the College as a PLT provider so it is not surprising that Bell's outburst has caused others to offer their own frank assessment of the College's PLT.

According to Maxim Shanahan of the Australian Financial Review:

Senior practitioners and recent graduates from the 15-week practical legal training course, which requires only five days of in-person attendance and is taught mostly online, criticised its lack of rigour and utility.

They acknowledged a normalisation of cheating by sharing past answers to recycled exam questions and deploying ChatGPT to generate responses.

One junior lawyer, who completed the course last year and now works in the public sector, said prior fees of up to $12,000 were “transparently extortionate, and everyone knows that’s going in. It’s a necessary prerequisite for admission, and students know they won’t gain anything from it”.

“I didn’t feel like I was getting value for money once. Coming from university where academic rigour was held in high regard, to be paying for mundane and reductive online tasks felt like a slap in the face. In order to justify that price, the standard should be a lot higher,” said the lawyer, who asked for anonymity to speak more freely.

Another junior lawyer, who paid for the course themselves and now works at a community legal centre, said staff did little to combat students’ dim view of the course.

“There’s kind of this unspoken vibe between teachers and students that it’s all pretty bullshit,” they said.

“Written assessments follow the same formula for every subject … but no one puts any effort into them. People either copy someone else’s [answers] or use ChatGPT.

“You can upload the course documents to ChatGPT and ask it to write a letter of advice. I did that and passed everything.”

In light of the above PLT graduates have now a certificate that cannot be said to add anything to their professional standing and if anything embarrasses them. It follows that PLT graduates and students are entitled to recovery of their fees.The College should in fact be providing past and current students with proposals for refund of fees paid for services that were obviously not of the standard promised. Failure to do so, very soon, can be remedied by a class action.

Complaints about the College's PLT are not new, but the College and its senior managers have always enjoyed the protection of their Chief Justice, which has allowed them to act with impunity.

TO BE READ WITH

Government funding for the College Of Law PLT where students are assessed on the quality of their reflection on their work experience , not the quality of their work experience

February 02, 2022

by Ganesh Sahathevan

The above has been extracted from the latest College Of Law Ltd's annual report. The substantial government funding is provided via the Commonwealth's FEE HELP facility.

The Practical Legal Training (PLT) which the College runs, and which is a prerequisite for admission to practise in NSW, has the imprimatur of the Chief Justice NSW, Tom Bathurst, in his capacity as Chairman of the the NSW Legal Profession Admission Board.

College Academic Director Lewis Patrick has said that in assessing the work experience component of the PLT " the College is not assessing the quality of (the student's) work experience, but rather the quality of (the student's) reflections on that experience.

The College's PLT course is now mostly on-line, and there are problems with delivery and infrastructure. Its FEE HELP cashflow is being utilised to finance its expansion overseas.

TO BE READ WITH

Failed in KL try London: The College Of Law's latest overseas venture raises further questions about the abuse of FEE HELP to fund vanity projects

by Ganesh Sahathevan

Very many questions remain unanswered with regards the College Of Law's joint venture with Malaysia's Bar Council.

UK's The Lawyer reported recently that the College Of Law Sydney has decided to break into the UK market, to"battle BPP and ULaw for super-exam supremacy".

Quoting College CEO Neville Carter The Lawyer reported:
“The hallmark of the Australian model is delivery of learning directly into the workplace within a very flexible framework of work placement. The model drives access to the legal services market and fuels the growth of employment opportunities. We believe that the reforms in England and Wales provide an opportunity for us to share what we have learnt in Australia and across Asia and assist in shaping new models and pathways in England and Wales.”

Carter has yet to explain his exaggerated claims of having reformed Malaysian legal practise in the mid 80s; in fact the College's latest venture into Malaysia seems to have ended in failure, again leaving many unanswered questions.
The College has refused to explain why its website dedicated to its "LLM" in Malaysia no loner works, nor has it been replaced with anything similar.

As previously reported, the College seems to have a tendency to invest its mainly government funded revenue in vanity projects in exotic locations at the expense of its core business of providing the Professional Legal Training course that must be completed by anyone seeking admission to practise in NSW.

Complaints against the College are ignored by its regulator, the NSW Legal Profession Admission Board, which is chaired by the Chief Justice of NSW,who considers it the height of bad behaviour to question the relevance and quality of the College's teaching standards, despite students here having to normally take on a debt of about AUD 10,000 to pay for about 3 months worth of on-line learning, most of which is self taught with minimal input from instructors.
END

Posted 13th December 2019 by Ganesh Sahathevan

Pillar of Australian legal education responsible for training thousands of Australia's barristers, KCs, SCs , magistrates and judges reported to have turned a blind eye to cheating in his practical training programme , accused by his own Chief Justice of providing training not worth the money

by Ganesh Sahathevan

Neville Carter has marketed his PLT with exaggerated claims of his contribution to Malaysia's legal practise, which have been denied and rejected by some of Malaysia's most senior lawyers and legal academics

Neville Carter , the pillar of Australian legal education responsible for training thousands of Australia's barristers, KCs, SCs and possibly judges, is reported to have turned a blind eye to cheating in his College Of Law practical training programme. He has been accused by his own Chief Justice of providing training not worth the money.

Readers of this writer's Ganesh Sahathevan blog will recall this claim form The College 's website:

With a career spanning three decades, Neville (Carter) is an influential figure in legal circles, having been responsible for the professional education of nearly 100,000 lawyers in Australia, New Zealand and Asia.

In the past week however a personage no less than the Chief Justice Of NSW, Andrew Campbell SC, who is also chairman of the NSW Legal Profession Admission Board which oversees the College and accredits its PLT course, has accused Carter and the College of charging excessive fees for its PLT and initiated a survey among the state's barristers and solicitors to determine how the PLT can be overhauled.

Bell's highly public attack on the College has emboldened NSW lawyers to express themselves in blunt terms (even if under condition of anonymity) about the College's PLT .

According to Maxim Shanahan of the Australian Financial Review:

Despite these revelation Lewis Patrick , the College's longstanding Academic Director says he is unaware of any cheating:

Lewis Patrick, the College’s chief academic officer, said plagiarism, sharing of coursework and use of artificial intelligence “pose a major challenge to the assurance of academic integrity for all higher education institutions”.

“As such, we have developed strategies to address this, including relying strongly on oral assessments, coupled with the redesign of coursework activities to ensure that when students use AI they do so responsibly and critically.”

“Any suspected plagiarism or unauthorised use of AI by a student in their coursework is investigated and may result in a finding of academic misconduct.”

Tuesday, February 11, 2025

CJ NSW Andrew Bell should not be overly concerned with the AUD 2 Million paid College Of Law's senior managers, but with the AUD 45 Million paid in employee benefits , and amounts hidden away in ever increasing "Other Expenses"

by Ganesh Sahathevan

Michaele Whitbourn of the SMH reports:

NSW’s top judge has fired a fresh round in a row over legal training by writing to thousands of lawyers raising concerns about the “considerable cost” and kicking off a reform campaign.

Chief Justice Andrew Bell sent ripples through the profession last week when he delivered a speech taking aim at the College of Law, a not-for-profit body providing practical legal training (PLT) to aspiring lawyers nationwide, and expressing “profound concern” over “extremely high fees”.

The imbroglio over legal training comes at a time of instability for the college as its long-serving chief executive Neville Carter prepares to retire in the first half of the year after almost 30 years.
Bell expressed alarm in his speech that PLT fees last year “were between $11,000 and $12,000 … to obtain the graduate diploma [of legal practice], which is, of course, a prerequisite for admission to practice”. He said the fees “may well present a significant barrier to entry”.

Bell examined the College of Law’s financial statements and expressed “surprise, to put the matter mildly” in his speech that the not-for-profit “has been generating an average ‘surplus’ of almost $16 million per annum over the past decade and accumulated ‘retained earnings’ of just under $180 million”.

“Although the College of Law, at my urging, late last year announced a reduction in course fees [to $9200 this year], I remain concerned about the very considerable cost that is charged for PLT by various providers,” Bell said in his letter.

“This amount has grown significantly over the last decade.”

While Bell did not make this observation, the College of Law Limited’s financial statements indicate total compensation for “key management personnel” in 2024 was $2.01 million. However, it did not identify how many personnel shared in this compensation.

AUD $2 Million is material but the real story for anyone who has read the College Of Law's financial statements is the Income Statement items "Other Expenses" and "Employee Benefits And Other Expenses" .

As the extracts from the College's financial statements filed at the ACNC (for it is a not for profit) show, "Other Expenses" have risen by more than 26% over the 2018-2024 financial periods. Unlike other companies, the College has not provided any explanatory notes for the item "Other Expenses". However it is a matter of public record that between 2018 and 2024 College CEO Neville Carter led the College on an overseas expansion into Asia and the UK, with disastrous results. Carter and College charman Joseph Joseph Catanzariti remain on the board of COL SIN Pty Ltd, and The College Of Legal Practise UK Pty Ltd. Directors fees are likely to be paid but these are not disclosed as a separate line item in the statements shown below.

It is also likely that these sums have been hidden away in the item "Employee Benefits And Other Expenses" which have grown by more than 50% over the 2018-2024 financial periods. Here too explanatory notes have not been provided.

While it is good that Andrew Bell is concerned with The College of Law Australia's finances and standards his NSW LPAB, then under the chairmanship of his predecessor Tom Bathurst, was provided information of where exactly CEO Neville Carter and his board of directors, chaired by Joseph Catanzariti AM GAICD, were spending their tax payer funded FEE HELP PLT income.

Since the article below was published in 2018, The College of Law Australia has expanded into the UK, with an even bigger venture that seems to be on the verge of collapse.

There is also a Singapore tax haven subsidiary, COL SIN Pty Ltd of which CEO Neville Carter ,chairman Joseph Catanzariti AM GAICD and acting CEO Angie Zandstra are directors.

While Andrew Bell appears to be concerned about salaries paid to the College' momagers, he has not said anything about the directors' fees paid its senior managers and board members when they are appointed directors of the overseas ventures, and local subsidiaries.

To Be Read With

Overseas business travel, sponsorship of foreign events ,all funded by FEE HELP: The College Of Law's taxpayer funded South East Asian adventure

Saturday, February 8, 2025

Will College Of Law PLT standards continue to be determined by novelist Adrian Deans, and will PLT work experience continue to be judged not by the quality of the work experience, but by the quality of the reflection of the work experience , as described by Lewis Patrick, Chief Academic Director College Of Law

by Ganesh Sahathevan

The public questioning of a College Of Law PLT by Chief Justice NSW Andrew Bell demands that these issues concerning the College Of Law be investigated. They have clearly affected the quality of training.

Mr Adrian Deans
The College's PLT work experience component is overseen by Adrian Dean, a novelist who does not appear to have much exposure to legal practise.

This writer has had the experience of submitting a work experience journal to Deans, while enrolled as a PLT student at the College. The conclusion of this writer's work experience recorded in the journal was that the College taught little if anything that was applicable in actual legal practise.

Deans objected to that submission, and requested it be changed. He was unable to defend the relevance of the College's PLT course, except to say that this writer had a "problem" with the course he oversaw. The College's academic head, Lewis Patrick attempted to justify his and Deans' position by stating that PLT students' work experience journals were judged on the quality of the reflection of the experience, and not the quality of the work experience itself.

The above occurred in 2018, when the College's conduct was overseen by the then Chief Justice OF NSW, Tom Bathurst. The above matters were brought the Bathurst's attention, and he did nothing.

TO BE READ WITH

Antipodean methods of legal training under scrutiny in the UK: Lewis Patrick, Chief Academic Director College Of Law (COL) resigns from the COL's UK venture, College Of Legal Practise

by Ganesh Sahathevan

Mr Lewis Patrick

Lewis Patrick , Chief Academic Officer and Deputy CEO at College of Law (COL) , has also resigned as a director of COL's UK venture, the College Of Legal Practise Ltd (COLP) . He joins Nick Savage, COLP's high profile CEO, whose resignation was reported on this blog yesterday.

The reasons for now two high profile departures are unknown; the College and in particular its CEO Neville Carter operate under a code of secrecy and have refused to answer queries about their operations.

However, its foreign misadventures, especially in Malaysia, are now a matter of public record. Despite these public revelations the College has refused to clarify matters; CEO Carter has in fact gone so far as to portray the Malaysian experience as a plus in promoting the College's expansion into the UK.
A similar venture in Singapore also seems to have run into problems.

It is left to be seen how the UK market reacts to the College's uniquely Antipodean methods of instruction in legal training. For example, in his capacity as Academic Director Patrick once famously declared that in assessing the work experience component of the Practical Legal Training (PLT) course that the College Of Law conducts in Australia " the College is not assessing the quality of (the student's) work experience, but rather the quality of (the student's) reflections on that experience.

In fact, the College's Director in charge of the PLT's work experience component is one Adrian Deans, who in the past decade has become better known as a novelist.