A lavish lobster restaurant is at risk of closure as its owner is chased up over $11million worth of debt connected to his other failed business ventures.
Lobster Cave, in Beaumaris, south-east Melbourne, was reportedly issued with a winding up notice last week.
The restaurant, which made headlines in 2017 when then Victorian Opposition leader Matthew Guy was spotted having dinner with an alleged Melbourne mafia boss in an incident the tabloid press dubbed ‘lobster with a mobster’, is run by chef Vasilios Fergadiotis, who goes by Bill Ferg.
Flexicommercial, a ‘buy now, pay later’ commercial lending firm, lodged winding up proceedings against Mr Ferg’s lobster business last week, according to an ASIC notice.
A hearing is due to take place on September 16 at the NSW Supreme Court.
A number of Mr Ferg’s food wholesaler businesses have also collapsed.
He is the sole director of Extramile Trading, which went into liquidation earlier this year with debts of $8.6million, reported news.com.au.
Extramile, which had five employees, operated as a wholesaler of dairy, meat and seafood to the hospitality and food service industry from Braeside in Melbourne’s south-east.
Lobster Cave, in Beaumaris, south-east Melbourne, was reportedly issued with a winding up notice last week
The restaurant, which made headlines in 2017 when then Victorian Opposition leader Matthew Guy was spotted having dinner with an alleged Melbourne mafia boss in an incident the tabloid press dubbed ‘lobster with a mobster’, is run by chef Vasilios Fergadiotis, who goes by Bill Ferg (pictured)
There are 64 unsecured creditors owed $7.225million, according to a statutory report the appointed liquidator, Stephen Dixon of insolvency Hamilton Murphy, submitted to the corporate regulator last month.
It has since closed down.
Another of Mr Ferg’s dairy and vegetable wholesalers, Green Earth Industries, went bust with debts of $856,000.
Mr Ferg took over the two-decade-old business in February this year. The business went under three months later.
Fonterra Brands, the company behind Bega cheese, Perfect Italiano cheese, and Western Star butter, is its largest creditor, owed $493,000.
Mr Ferg was also recently made the sole director of Marsh Dairy Products, a business specialising in the distribution and packaging of dairy products.
The business is now in administration with debts of around $2.5million but continues to trade.
The administrator said he had been able to pay $273,000 back to creditors and had negotiated a sale of the company.
‘We are limited in what we can say at this time because of litigation and negotiation matters, as we deal with the challenges,’ Mr Ferg told news.com.au.
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