Fall from grace
Celebrity chef George Calombaris 24
Things just keep going from bad to worse for George Calombaris. Not only has the 41-year-old former MasterChef judge, who was charged with assault in 2017, seemingly lost everything, but he has been slammed online since news broke that the hospitality empire he founded, MAdE Establishment, has been placed into voluntary administration.
The news of the collapse of MAdE comes just months after the company admitted to underpaying $7.83 million in wages to 515 of its current and former employees.
Many blamed Calombaris personally for the accounting mishap, with punters also pinning last week’s news of the immediate closure of 12 venues and loss of more than 400 jobs on the celebrity chef.
“That’s what happens when you rip people off,” one Facebook user commented shortly after the announcement.
As the very public face of the business, Calombaris unsurprisingly copped the brunt of the blame for the fall of the 12 venues, and it seems he and wife Natalie Tricarico will also take a personal financial hit after they listed their Toorak home and Safety Beach holiday property for sale.
With his role as a judge on MasterChef
no longer, things couldn’t look much worse for Calombaris’ future.
But insolvency expert Jeremy Nipps, a liquidator and partner of Cor Cordis, suggests this won’t be the end of the Melbourne restaurateur’s career. “He can go and open up another restaurant if he wanted to, there’s no preventing him,” Nipps explains exclusively to WHO. “There’s no stopping a director of a company from recommencing a business. He would be able to do that. The law allows that. There’s no stopping that.”
Unlike personal bankruptcy, MAdE Establishment going into voluntary administration will not affect Calombaris’ personal ability to start again.
According to Nipps, the reason why the father of two is selling personal assets is that they are likely tied to loans associated with the business. “I don’t know what the structuring of the company is but generally what we see a lot of the time in the director’s personal financial position is inextricably linked to the business itself,” he says. “Generally, personal assets have been pledged to support funding or whatever else the bank has helped fund in the form of a loan. There are very often situations where a director’s house has been used as security to allow the business to be funded.
“That could be one of the reasons why he’s selling. He needs to unlock any equity to pay down bank debt.”
While Nipps says voluntary administration is obviously “not a nice process to go through”, it is not an uncommon occurrence. “This happens all the time,” he says. “It’s only the high-profile stuff you hear about.”
More than 750 Australian businesses go into voluntary administration a year, with the proceedings likely to take a few months to settle. So, what happens now for Calombaris?
The chef shared his “deep sadness and regret” at the announcement last week on Instagram.
“To all my team, I truly regret it has come to this. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your loyalty and friendship,” he wrote.
“On a personal note, the last few months have been the most challenging I have ever faced … I remain thankful to my family, friends, the MAdE team, our loyal and regular customers.
I am so sorry all our collective efforts have not proved to be enough. I’m gutted that it’s come to this.”
Melbourne restaurateur Matteo Pignatelli suggested to The Australian last weekend that the downtrodden celebrity chef would most likely move his family to Singapore. “The kids matter most,” he told the newspaper.
“I regret it’s come to this” – CALOMBARIS