OWNERS HOMES & HOSED ON THE RICH LISTS

AS the aged care industry cries poor, their owners and operators are definitely not short of cash. Heritage Care proprietors Peter and Areti Arvanitis love to flaunt their fleet of prestige cars, which includes a Maserati, a Lamborghini and even a Rolls-Royce.

The couple’s multimilliondollar mansion, which they have since sold before upgrading, was recently featured in Vogue magazine and was described as “the Melbourne mansion with Gucci in almost every room”.

But they have also been making headlines for other reasons. Their Epping Gardens aged care facility had the highest number of COVID-19 cases, with 211 staff and residents affected by the virus.

Late last week, Mr Arvanitis resigned as a director of Heritage Care after intensifying focus on his and his wife Areti’s wealth while the aged care industry claims it is going bankrupt and is struggling to cope with COVID-19 infections.

“Some have been critical of Peter’s private wealth, which was acquired before his time at Heritage Care, including the public offering of Estia Health that generated over $1bn in 2014,” Heritage Care CEO Greg Reeve said.

“It is not possible for any aged care operator to generate that degree of wealth from resident fees, and it’s inaccurate to imply otherwise,” he added.

“Not wanting to be a distraction to the good work of staff, Peter has decided to resign as a director of Heritage Care effective immediately, but will maintain his partial ownership in the business.”

Meanwhile in Queensland, TriCare owners Paul O’Shea and sons Peter, John and Damien have had enough spare cash to donate more than $80,000 to the Queensland’s Liberal National Party in recent years.

The O’Shea family was ranked 30th in Queensland’s Top 150 Rich List in 2014 and is worth $342m. Last night they told News Corp Australia this amount was “significantly overstated and we didn’t seek to correct it at the time.”

Attention has been drawn to the fact the company is based in Norfolk Island. The Centre for International Corporate Tax Accoun

tability and Research found that TriCare received $66m in federal funding in 2016-17, while the entire GDP of Norfolk Island was estimated to be $68m a year in 2013-14.

The firm said TriCare and its shareholders received no tax benefit in relation to Norfolk Island.

Arcare owner and rich-lister Russell Knowles recently sold a clifftop Portsea mansion in Victoria for a speculated $13.5m.

Regis Healthcare founder Bryan Dorman is estimated to be worth $459m and ranked 233rd on The Australian’s Rich 250 list this year.