Your article published on 25 March 2015 in The Age is replete with disgraceful lies. You are now rated as a Disgraceful Sewer Rat of journalism – far worse that your usual gutter journalism.

LIES:

The target of your abuse never quoted a figure of $200 million;
The sale to Sonic included other medical centres not connected with your target;
You failed to mention that he was the largest creditor of Millennium;

FOLLOWED BY MORE LIES:

The alleged $40 million did not have to be shared with anyone;
You have failed to mention the sale of the other centres to an unrelated party for far more than $40 million;
Your comment of settlement of the USA proceedings, with creditors accepting any sum is a blatant lie – you have no knowledge of USA bankruptcy law.

AND MORE LIES:

The mention of spending $48,000 per month on activities – $36,000 per month were mortgage payments;
The ATO has not accepted the fictitious number you attribute to it.

You are just a disgraceful liar copying lies from your sewer rat colleagues. Perhaps if you had put to your target these lies you would have got a fair and accurate story, but of course that wouldn’t suit your purposes. DISGRACEFUL SEWER RAT

FOLLOWED BY MORE LIES:

The alleged $40 million did not have to be shared with anyone;
You have failed to mention the sale of the other centres to an unrelated party for far more than $40 million;
Your comment of settlement of the USA proceedings, with creditors accepting any sum is a blatant lie – you have no knowledge of USA bankruptcy law.

AND MORE LIES:

The mention of spending $48,000 per month on activities – $36,000 per month were mortgage payments;
The ATO has not accepted the fictitious number you attribute to it.

You are just a disgraceful liar copying lies from your sewer rat colleagues. Perhaps if you had put to your target these lies you would have got a fair and accurate story, but of course that wouldn’t suit your purposes. DISGRACEFUL SEWER RAT

Edelsten deal not so super for Sonic

Let’s hope Sonic Health-care boss, Dr Colin Gold schmidt, really likes the medical centres it bought from disgraced former doctor Geoffrey Edelsten because it might have to pay for them twice.

The bad news surfaced in court documents that shed new light on the sale that helped to re-establish Edelsten’s life style of baubles and babes.

In 2011 Edelsten was crowing about the sale of 21 medical centres to Sonic for around $200 million.

CBD has tracked down an asset shuffle that preceded the sale of four medical centres to Sonic Healthcare in 2011 for $40 million.

ASIC documents reveal that the four centres were sold by two companies Millennium Management,· and Lonnex, in February 2011, to a third- Lonnex & Millennium Management (LMM).

Millennium was due to receive $18 million for its two centres, Lonnex $22 million.

So far so good.

But on that very same day, the two companies decided to forgive the $40 million debt owed to them by LMM for the medical centres.

Not so good for the creditors at Lonnex and Millennium.

This included the tax office, which is claiming to be owed more than $2 million in tax by the two companies, and Victoria’s State Revenue Office (SRO) which wound up millennium over its unpaid debt.

In July that year, Edelsten, who controlled the three companies, offloaded LMM to Sonic for $40 million.

Last month,Millennium’s liquidators filed a statement of claim in the Supreme Court of Victoria to have the $18 million “forgiveness transaction” voided.

“The company suffered detriment in the debt of$18 million, owed to It by the defendant, was forgiven,” the claim said.

It also claims the forgiveness transaction was entered into at a time when Millennium was insolvent.

“The defendant was a company in which Edelsten was financially, legally and commercially interested.” it said.

But it is the new owner, Sonic, which would now be hit with the $18 million bill for centres it has already paid for.

If the liquidators appointed to Lonnex follow suite, Sonic could be on the hook for $40 million – on top of the $40 million it has paid for these centres.

CBD called Sonic but got no reply on this matter. However, it is understood the multi-billion-dollar

ASX listed group is well aware of the court case.

At least Sonic investors can rest easy that the original $200 million figure provided by Edelsten was a little inflated.

CBD understand that the four centres and $40 million figure, which Edelston had to share with his business partners, covers entire sale to Sonic.

Edelsten himself, was reluctant to offer any official comment to CBD.

ATO blow

‘l’he good news for Sonic is that, so far, Lonnex has not shown the same appetite for action.

Minutes of a Lonnex creditors meeting held just before Christmas reported that they discussed the $22 million “deed of forgiveness and release” and a $1.87 million claim by the ATO.

The liquidator, Ross McDermott, advised that it was a “voidable transaction” and “he was looking for funding to take further action”.

One creditor representaive, Michael Webb, proposed the motion “that the liquidator should not incur any further costs with respect  to any action … with respect to the eligible forgiveness of debt” with LMM. It was seconded by Edelsten, as a creditor,. and carried unanimously. It does not look like a third creditor, the tax office, has challenged the matter at this stage.

Not that it would be the first time the ATO has been short-changed by Edelsten.

Edelsten recently settled his bankruptcy case, with creditors agreeing to take just a few cents in the dollar to wipe out more than $80 million of accrued debt.

The ATO and NAB wore among the creditors which agreed to accept a cosh settlement of just over $1 million.