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Ken Rosewall fronts liquidators' hearing for collapsed BBY firm

Wednesday, 21 Sep 2016 12:42:02 | Elysse Morgan

Ken Rosewall says he assisted his son's business through publicity. (Supplied: Tennis Australia)

Tennis legend Ken Rosewall has told a Supreme Court hearing into the collapse of broking firm BBY he had concerns about the financial viability of the firm as far back as 2011, four years before its spectacular collapse.

"BBY always seemed to be on the wrong side of the ledger financially," Mr Rosewall, who was a director, told liquidators.

Mr Rosewall fronted up to court this morning, looking frail and flanked by lawyers, to give evidence at the liquidators' hearing into BBY.

In June 2011, Mr Rosewall, at the request of his son Glenn, injected $3 million into BBY and then six months later loaned another $2 million.

Two years later in 2013, Ken Rosewall was asked to put another $500,000 into the business and Glenn Rosewall put in $2 million of his money, although the court heard that money may have also come from Ken Rosewall.

"In September 2013 it was your view the company was in financial crisis," David Pritchard SC, acting for liquidator KPMG, put to Ken Rosewall.

"Yes that is true," he answered.

Results varied widely

Ken Rosewall was presented with a summary of the board — on which he sat — profit forecasts and actual results that varied widely.

In 2013 the full-year result was forecast to be a $640,000 profit, but turned out to be a $7.1 million loss.

At this evidence Mr Rosewall rested his head in his hand and stared at the document provided by the liquidators, and then wiped his eye.

"I don't think any of these figures were presented at board meetings," he told the court.

Mr Rosewall made it clear to the court that he did not fully understand the broking business or the more complex trading services that BBY was providing to clients.

He saw his role as director as more of a public role to help his son grow the BBY business.

"Not having knowledge of the inner points of the business I would be in assistance in relation to public relations and publicity," he said.

In response to the question of whether he understood he had to ensure the company was solvent, he replied: "I didn't know anything about it really."

When asked if he knew what insolvency was, he answered: "In my mind was that they were doing business without the proper amount of funds."

Ken Rosewall sticks by son

Despite allegations that client money had been misused to support the operating accounts and that there were potentially serious breaches of the corporations act by people managing the company including his son, Mr Rosewall is sticking by him.

"Glenn came into the company with a view to enlarge it to do well and I think he put his heart and soul in the business. He might have been a firm executive and maybe some people didn't like his attitude, I don't know," he told the court.

"I think the stress of what was happening in those five years had an effect on his temperament and I felt very much [we had] a very good father-son relationship and that's why I put money into the company, and I think he was let down by a lot of the staff."

Glenn Rosewall has been labelled by former staff during the hearing as a "tyrant" and "master manipulator" who had a habit of refusing to pay invoices and who believed that "everyone was trying to rip him off".

The hearing continues.

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