Paul’s Warehouse owner Paul Dwyer brought in Steve Waugh to help promote a luxury hotel development in Sri Lanka. Seven years later it’s unfinished and mired in controversy.
Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time.Posing with Steve Waugh at the Sydney Cricket Ground, Paul Dwyer and Ajit Wijesinghe spruiked their big investment opportunity: a luxury high-rise development on a strip of pristine beachfront in Sri Lanka billed as the first of its kind on the small island nation.
Details of the messy dispute are contained in a complaint filed by a Sri Lankan investor with the Colombo Chief Magistrate’s Court in April 2022, eight months after building came to a stop. It was while living on Sri Lanka’s picturesque south coast with his partner that Dwyer dreamed up the idea of a beachside hotel and hospitality hub in Balapitiya.
“I also invested in one of their hotels in Dubai. So when I saw the one in Sri Lanka I thought that is something serious, something very professional,” said Gregory Catsberg, a Singapore-based executive with a cosmetics company who purchased two apartments in the towers, spending about $US700,000.Hong Kong-based retired housewife Sandhya Chourdia was also assured by the Dusit Thani link.
Dwyer also admits to borrowing $US400,000 from the company that has not been repaid, while company cash flow statements reveal he was paid a director’s fee of up to $US45,000 a month and Wijesinghe received a monthly payment of up to $US20,000.The turn of events led investors to begin individually filing civil claims in Sri Lanka to recover at least a portion of what they outlaid.
Dwyer, who points out that it was him who provided company accounts and cash flow statements to investors, told this masthead he received no salary for three-and-a-half to four years before taking a director’s fee, which he said was $US20,000 and rose to $US45,000 “for a couple of months from memory”. He had not paid back the $US400,000 loan, he said, “because Ajit is still in the company”.
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