Craig Bond, businessman and son of the disgraced Australian tycoon, Alan Bond, caused great disappointment when he failed to fulfil eagerly-awaited engagements in Dublin this week. Interested parties and observers of the Bula affair were most upset. So too were officials in Australia engaged in searching the globe for any undeclared Bond family assets which might exist.
Mr Bond was to be interviewed by the Government-appointed inspector into the Bula affair, barrister Mr Lyndon McCann, on Tuesday. The following day he was to be crossexamined at length in the High Court in relation to his claim that he is the beneficial owner of the British Virgin Islands registered company, Mir Oil Development Ltd.
The identity of the beneficial owner of Mir Oil is one of the central points to be decided by Mr McCann in the report he is due to submit to the Tanaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Ms Harney, in a week's time. Mr McCann was told late last week that Mr Bond would not be turning up as promised. An open-ended adjournment of the High Court case involving Mir Oil was subsequently granted to counsel for the company on Monday afternoon.
Mr Bond first appeared on the scene in November, clutching a document claiming power of attorney to act for Mir Oil. The document was signed by Ms Sue Neil, the Jersey-based nominee director who, through her company formations business, Chamonix Corporate Services Ltd, set up Mir Oil in October 1994. The document had been signed on November 17th, 1997.
For many of the parties involved in the Bula affair, the appearance of Mr Bond on the scene was greeted with astonishment. The story up to then involved Ireland, England, Jersey, Russia, Sweden, South Africa and a former Bula chairman, Mr Jim Stanley, whose whereabouts were unclear.
Now here was the son of Alan Bond - the flamboyant billionaire turned bankrupt and prison inmate - stepping forward and threatening to complicate the plot by involving Australia and the mess left by the collapse of the Bond empire. Any editor in a publishers specialising in financial thrillers would have told the author to drop the idea: Readers would never buy it.
But then again, from the perspective of Alan Bond, the Bula affair and his son's role in it are par for the course. Alan Bond was born in England 60 years ago, the son of a former miner. He was brought to Australia in 1949 and left school at 15 to take up work as an apprentice sign-writer.
At a dance in Perth in Western Australia he met Eileen Hughes, a teenage daughter from a wealthy Catholic family. At 18 years of age Alan Bond converted to Catholicism, married Eileen Hughes and, using capital given to him by his young wife's family, began building a worldwide empire which would eventually involve interests in brewing, wine, spirits, motor vehicles, gold, minerals, telecommunications, mining, exploration, petroleum production, TV and radio. At its peak, the Bond Corporation had assets worth an estimated £5 billion.
Australians liked Bond's brashness and ostentation. He had homes in Sydney, Perth and London, a famous collection of hugely expensive paintings, a private Boeing 727 jet, two luxury yachts and a mansion and estate in Hertfordshire. Former Labour leader and Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke was a close personal friend. In the 1980s journalist John Pilger dubbed a select group of the most powerful and rich individuals in Australia "The Order of Mates". Bond was a member.
It was into such an environment that Craig Bond was born 39 years ago. He was one of four children: John, Craig, Suzanne and Jody. Craig was brought up in Perth and did not attend university. John studied law in university and worked for the merchant bank, Morgan Grenfell, before moving to a law firm used by his father, Parker and Parker. (Coincidentally, Morgan Grenfell was to invest about £5 million in Bula's misadventures in Siberia.) Craig decided against third-level education and tried his hand at property development and the catering industry. However, he did not display the same business acumen as his father.
In the late 1980s things began to fall apart for Alan Bond. He came away badly bruised from an encounter with Tiny Rowland's Lonrho. His involvement in Australian broadcasting was investigated by the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal. There were reports questioning the health of his business empire. In April 1992, he was forced into bankruptcy.
When it collapsed, Southern Equities Corporation Ltd - a new name for Bond Corporation Holdings Ltd - had debts of £2 billion (Aus$4 billion). Bond himself was originally assessed as having personal debts of £0.6 billion, but following some court actions £300 million of this was transferred to Dallhold Investments, Bond's private company. The total debt from the collapse was £3 billion. It was the largest corporate collapse in Australian history. In February of 1995 creditors accepted a deed of compensation which saw them getting less than a cent for every Aus$1 owed.
Alan Bond was eventually jailed for fraud. Last year his prison term was extended for a further three years. His earliest possible release date is June 1999. Meanwhile, a number of investigations are under way to establish whether he has declared all his assets. If it should transpire that Bond had other hidden assets, then the February 1995 deal with creditors becomes null and void. In the run-up to the agreement, an assessment of all Bond family assets was carried out and all the Bond family members interviewed. It has never been reported that ownership of Mir Oil Development Ltd was declared. The company was formed in October 1994.
