Even after David Chandler (former building commissioner) tried to tame the wild wild west of the construction industry, it seems like cowboys continue to run amok.
This time, the poor buggers in the Somerset apartment complex in NSW’s Carlingford are paying about $800,000 out of pocket, thanks infamous developer-gone-bankrupt Dyldam, leaving the building with endless defects and no functioning fire system.
And for the bitter cherry on top, the now bankrupt director Sam Fayad has also been revealed by the NSW Supreme Court to be the “Australian businessman” involved in the large-scale Hong Kong ICAC (Independent Commission Against Corruption) investigation into a series of bribery cases, this week.
According to the Herald, the now 66-year-old holds the record for the largest personal bankruptcy in Australian history, after giving personal guarantees for business loans he used to try prop up his development empire. The downfall spectacularly brought down 300 associated companies, and no doubt continues to cause the ongoing nightmare for all the liquidators.
They have been complaining about the company having no books, no records, complex movement of money between companies and a lack of cooperation from Fayed and his two now bankrupt sons.
And back at the Carlingford apartment, the responsibility of the fix originally ended up with Result Strata Management, which apparently is about to be the only firm permanently banned from practising in the state.
In an inspection, Fire and Rescue staff reported nine faults with the fire system, including that the water pump tanks were only three-quarters full, and there seemed to be concerns about potential combustible cladding.
The new building managers, Compass Strata’s licensee, Mark Cowell, said the fire safety issue should be fixed by the end of the month. He also could not figure out why the system hadn’t been updated in so long, but pointed out the strata managers’ record keeping was so poor, there were only 12 documents sent to him when there should’ve been hundreds.
He added that it was rare even in his 25-year career to see a building in this situation, and it was thanks to developers and builders not being held accountable and “able to do a runner to escape the consequences of their misdeed.”
Climate change still matters, and here’s why
Amy Westervelt in The Drilled this week said what many are no doubt feeling about the climate battle in the US: “who the fuck cares?” with “a heaping side of what difference does it make?”
How do you lobby against a government shutting down renewable energy projects or senseless building of datacentres to power AI no one needs when citizens are being shot in the streets for peacefully protesting, or in our case, brutalised, capitals being bombed and the threat of World War III.
While environmental policy might seem trivial in the collapse of democracy, Westervelt noted, the climate crisis and democracy crisis are deeply connected. And she put together this graphic to help us visualise how our fossil fuel problems are rooted in our modern political problems. Hopefully, readers find it as fun, maybe even useful.
The next green unicorn found
We made a play of searching for the next green unicorn at our Circular Disruption event in November, and not long afterwards, it seems one has appeared: Neara, following a successful Series D fundraising round of almost $90 million. The company provides digital twin modelling software that helps its users figure out what their next critical energy infrastructure or upgrade needs to be to avoid vulnerabilities and future disasters by allowing them to simulate real world conditions.
The round was led by TCV, an international equity firm that invested in big names like Netflix, Spotify, Revolut, Employment Hero and Xero. Returning investors included Partners Group, EQT, Square Peg Capital, and Skip Capital.
And this was on top of a $45 million Series C funding raised in late 2024, which takes total funds raised to date to approximately $180 million.
The company believes its success was tied to how challenging it is to access energy in a world with ageing grid infrastructure, ambitious energy transition goals and exploding growth of AI and data centres.
It said it works with 90 per cent of all network utilities in Australia, including Essential Energy, Endeavour Energy, Ausgrid, Ausnet, Powercor, and SA Power Networks. Overseas, it works with Southern California Edison and CenterPoint Energy in the United States, ESP Network in Ireland, Scottish Power in the UK and Hedno in Greece.