COMMONWEALTH Bank of Australia (CBA) has taken possession of two rural properties in Queensland purchased for more than $40 million after the company that owned them was found to have acted fraudulently.
The The Australian Financial Review reports that CBA appointed McGrathNicol to the historic Yalanga Station in the Noosa hinterland and a macadamia nut farm on the Sunshine Coast previously owned by former state Labor minister Ken Haywood.
Both of the properties were purchased by Nexis Holdings in 2010.
The company has since been delisted from the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and has failed to pay interest to the CBA on the two rural properties.
Earlier in the year, the Brisbane Supreme Court declared the sale fraudulent and ordered the properties returned to their original owner – subject to the buyer's mortgage still remaining in favour of CBA.
The properties are now likely to be sold for a fraction of their boomtime purchase price.
The 1640-hectare Yalanga Station is one of the largest freehold blocks near Noosa and is used as a mixed farming operation. The macadamia farm has more than 110,000 trees. Colliers International is selling the properties.
The CBA declined to comment but Nexis Holdings director Walter Filler, who was found by a Supreme Court judge this year to have engaged in misleading conduct, says he wants to fight the decision.