Bathla shaping up to be largest housing collapse Australia has ever seen, says property developer

The Bathla collapse is a disaster for buyers, subcontractors and lenders, but there are claims it's also set to become the biggest housing collapse in Australian history. Industry insiders say the fallout could top $4 billion. Michael Akkawi, the founder and chief executive of prominent developer, Conquest, a company with major housing projects in Sydney, Airlie Beach and London, says his assessment is that Bathla is shaping up to be the largest corporate collapse Australia has ever seen is because of the size and scale. "It would be second only to the HIH collapse (in 2001)...This is actually larger than the Babcock collapse back in 2009," he says. "Based on the numbers that they're reporting at the moment, it's circa $3.6 billion in debt, when you add the layers of subcontractors, suppliers, tax debt, and everyone else in the food chain, that number could be astronomically higher." Angry sub-contractors are losing hope as a final shutdown looms, and some have been seen going into construction sites to take back materials and appliances in an effort to recoup costs. Ultimately, Mr Akkawi says Bathla will go into liquidation, describing it as a 'disaster' for people waiting on securing keys to their homes. Mr Akkawi says the wider problems of high construction costs, government tax changes and interest rate hikes are a 'wake-up call' for the industry. #ABCBusiness Subscribe: http://ab.co/1svxLVE Note: In most cases, our captions are auto-generated. #ABCNEWS #ABCNEWSAustralia