Cruisy life for fallen broker
LIFE literally has been a 20day cruise for man-about-town Jeff Worboys.
The Bentley-driving Paradise Waters resident and his family have been cruising aboard luxury liner the Queen Mary 2 while investors who trusted the stockbroking firm he ran worry about the fate of their money.
That money, $211 million belonging to up to 10,000 people in three countries, has been frozen since November.
Mr Worboys’ wife, Pat, has posted Facebook photos about the family vacation, which started in Dubai and has just ended.
Balcony cabins on such QM2 cruises cost around $7000 and suites $15,000 or more.
Mrs Worboys said the cruise celebrated the couple’s 17th wedding anniversary.
“Exquisite QM2. My new home away from home,” she said. “What’s not to love!”
In another post, as the QM2 was departing Cyprus, she commented: “feeling very blessed”.
Mrs Worboys last year sold a Paradise Waters home for $5.3 million, the second upmarket home she had sold in the suburb in five years.
The family has been living in a rented riverfront home in the suburb’s Admiralty Dve.
Husband Jeff owned 40 per cent of online stockbroking firm Halifax Investment Services at the time it went into administration in November.
The administrators later estimated Halifax, with up to 10,000 investors, could have a funds shortfall in excess of $25 million.
They said the company could have been trading while insolvent since January 2017.
They also decided not to recover a Halifax-owned Maserati Gran Turismo Sport because it was security for a loan from Westpac.
Last month creditors voted to put the company into liquidation.