Jean Nassif: Wild life of property developer Jean Nassif and his $600 million debt

As the next chart shows, insolvencies are much higher in July 2023 than earlier this year in most of the country. They are especially bad in New South Wales.

Nationwide, 2022 was the bad year for insolvency. But in 2023, NSW is bleeding out.

When you break down the NSW data you find two things.

1. The insolvencies are mostly in the construction industry. Builders are finding it tough as interest rates rise. Some also locked in contracts back in 2021 and 2022 before the price of materials rose. That is squeezing margins and leaving them with not enough to pay their bills.

2. Diving in further shows something very surprising. The big uptick in insolvencies in NSW in July? They’re almost all due to one man: Jean Nassif. The property developer who police are now looking to arrest for fraud.

Mr Nassif has fled the country and is hiding out in a tiny village in Lebanon, getting newspapers delivered by mule (so he claims, anyway!).

The list of companies that have entered administration in NSW in July includes no fewer than 27 which have JKN in their name. That is, of course, Jean Khazen Nassif’s initials. For example: JKN Green Pty Ltd, JKN Airways, JKN Field Pty Ltd, JKN Airview, JKN Station Pty Ltd.

Mr Nassif also had multiple businesses with the name Toplace; a lot whose name includes the letter PM; and a lot with just streets for names, like Treacey St Pty Ltd. Presumably that’s a street in which he built property. All now in administration.

Businesspeople often have complex business structures. Jean Nassif appears to have taken this to extremes. The fugitive businessman, who once went viral for a post in which he gifts his wife a canary-yellow Lamborghini, just owns a lot of companies. Sorry, owned. It’s all past tense now. Those businesses are all in the hands of administrators now.

Quick explainer: Administration

When a company doesn’t have enough money to pay its bills, it is insolvent (i.e., bankrupt, broke). You’re not allowed to continue running an insolvent business – so says the law. You have to hand the business over to administrators. They are special accountants who will figure out how to get people who are owed money as much back as possible.

Sometimes they just shut everything down and sell off whatever they can. Other times they try to rejig the business and get it going again. Either way, the owner loses ownership and control of the business when it goes into administration. That’s what’s happened to Jean Nassif. The people his company owes money to include big finance companies like MaxCap, architects, subcontractors, and many more.

Wrecking ball

Some of his companies are being dealt with by professional administrator Suelen McCallum (who herself was fined for breaking the rules in 2019). Others are restructuring specialist Geoffrey Peter Granger. Still others are with firm Korda Mentha, a prominent Australian company that deals with insolvent firms. Mr Nassif’s sprawling business empire is apparently too much for one firm of administrators to handle.

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One man can have macroeconomic effects when their business is this big. For instance, Mr Nassif’s companies have gone broke owing at least $600 million, according to recent claims. This business collapse is big enough to shift the dial on the NSW economy, which is already deteriorating.

Mr Nassif is affecting more than just the NSW economy as he falls; he is also rocking the political system. Mr Nassif is the man at the heart of a scandal over corruption, involving making political appointments to councils who are most likely to approve property developments. At the moment, there’s a furore over whether the state’s corruption commission can listen to illegal phone recordings in pursuing its investigations.

Let’s hope the string of business collapses and political explosions isn’t too much for the NSW economy to handle.

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