The business partners of rapist Ralph Carr, AFL great Dustin Martin and Melbourne businessman Chris Bissiotis, have begun the process of erasing the veteran artist and sports manager from their entwined financial affairs.
Martin and Bissiotis on Wednesday removed Carr as a director, secretary and shareholder of a web of companies associated with the trio and which control a multimillion-dollar portfolio of inner-Melbourne properties.
Carr was last week found guilty of raping his 23-year-old personal assistant in 2023. His identity had been kept secret for almost three years until a controversial suppression order was lifted on Monday.
Immediately after Carr was named, the Tigers great declared that “effective immediately, I have ended my professional relationship with my former manager”, while Bissiotis declined to comment on the future of his relationship with the disgraced businessman.
Martin and Bissiotis have re-engineered the structures of at least five companies to remove any relationship with Carr. The name of one, RDC Property Group (originally named after Carr’s initials) has been changed to DMCB Group, with the entity now run out of an address in South Melbourne owned by Bissiotis. It was previously run from Carr’s office on Lennox Street in Richmond.
Martin and Bissiotis have also taken ownership – via three other companies that are named on title documents as the owners – of a trio of neighbouring commercial warehouses on Butler Street in Richmond. Beginning in 2016, the properties were purchased progressively for almost $8 million.
Carr has been removed as a director, secretary and shareholder of all three owner companies. It is not clear whether funds have changed hands.
Bissiotis was contacted for comment. A representative for Martin was also contacted.
Dinner, disco and a $25 million donation stuns Melbourne charity set
Melbourne’s fundraising networks lit up like a Christmas tree this week after a gala ball managed to raise more than $26.5 million on Saturday, mainly thanks to one donor stumping up a single pledge of $25 million.
The annual Epworth Medical Foundation Gala took place at Crown and is known on the dinner circuit as night of deep pockets, but the multimillion cash splash had the room popping off – appropriate really given the theme was “Epworth Goes Pop”.
The massive donation came during the pledge part of the evening, where a host with a live mic moves from table to table taking public pledges from guests.
“There were donations of $5000, $10,000, $20,000 and so on,” a guest told CBD.
“The guy with the microphone was beckoned over to one table and a man stood up and said ‘I would like to pledge $25 million’.
“I’ve never seen a reaction like it. Everyone stood up and applauded. People could not believe what they just heard.
“There was one more table to make a donation after that, of $50,000, and it did not make the normal impact, as you can imagine.”
The $25 million donation was made on behalf of the Sir Wilfred & C H (Roger) Brookes Charitable Foundation. Just what motivated the charitable act had CBD wondering, so we put in a call.
“Roger Brookes was a wonderful and longstanding supporter of Epworth, and this extraordinary gift reflects both his gratitude for the care he received and his belief in the people who deliver it. It is a legacy that will be felt every day in our hospitals,” Scott Bulger, the foundation’s boss told CBD.
The money will go towards the new home of the Brookes Academy of Nursing and Midwifery which is under construction at Epworth’s Richmond campus.
Brookes, a noted philanthropist who died in 2020, was the great-grandson of Alfred Deakin, the second prime minister of Australia – Deakin University is named after him – and his father was Sir Wilfred Brookes.
Interestingly, it seems to be the year for big donations. Queensland couple Quentin and Kylie Birt tipped $40 million into the FightMND charity at the Big Freeze event at the MCG in Melbourne in June. They had originally planned to donate $10 million to the organisation founded by Neale Daniher but on the day decided to up their gift to $40 million.
From Windsor Castle to Hamer Hall
Having lunched with King Charles at Windsor Castle and arrived at Royal Ascot this year in the royal carriage procession, Melbourne-born opera singer Danielle de Niese had plenty of stories to tell when she returned home to make her long-awaited debut with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
Her life in song has been full of adventure, starting with her appearance on Young Talent Time at the age of nine – she won a Yamaha piano on the show – before she headed to America to further her singing ambitions. Her talent has taken the 47-year-old diva around the world.
De Niese, who is married to British arts establishment figure Gus Christie, the executive chairman of the Glyndebourne Opera Festival, is in high demand in the UK and Europe, but told CBD over a post-show champagne that she was keen to return to Melbourne “any time I am asked” to perform for her home town audience.
Described by The New York Times as “Opera’s Coolest Soprano”, de Niese brought sass and glamour to the MSO’s Winter Gala at Hamer Hall, performing classic show tunes by Leonard Bernstein, George Gershwin and Cole Porter with the orchestra under the guidance of chief conductor Jaime Martín.
With a commitment back in London, she didn’t have time to linger after performing a matinee encore of the Gala program on Saturday. She caught a plane back to the UK that night – truly a high-flying diva.