So why was company using a beachhouse to store its key data?
I thank God that I get to sit down on Father's Day with both my sons. Mr Johnson said he met Will Deague two or three weeks ago to discuss the fate of the clan's Sonray accounts.
But many of the investors who funded these and other withdrawals are yet to see a dollar of their money.
Deague has two children, Hugo (6) and Sibella (5). ''They thought they had 23 accounts or thereabouts, whereas, in fact, there were only three accounts in existence when we went into administration.
Most have been surprisingly quiet about their losses.Deague has declined to confirm how much money his family sank into the failed broker and, while it is believed to be in the millions, reports of one Brighton family losing close to $20 million are said to be untrue.“I went to school with Scott and a number of my old school buddies had funds in there," he says.“We had a number of accounts in there over the years and it is just sad that it ended up this way.“We are just in the queue with everyone else,"says Deague, who claims not to have talked to Murray since the collapse.Two of the Deague family’s prized properties are now on the market, although William denies the sales are in any way connected to the family’s losses.More of the story came to light on Thursday when Murray was required to appear in the Supreme Court of Victoria to answer questions from Ferrier Hodgson administrator George Georges, who is investigating the collapse.It was revealed the Deague family had up to 12 trading accounts with the firm and last year injected $1.99 million.But Murray told the court that he later learnt that instead of being credited to the Deague’s client account in Sonray’s books, the money was put into the firm’s operating account. Joining APBC in 1996, Will worked on a range of projects before being appointed as CEO in 2008.His first major project as CEO was to organise and oversee the refurbishment of the former PANCH hospital in Preston into what is now known as Bell City, a very successful project for the company.In 2001 the Deague’s sponsored a project to create excitement around landscape painting in Australia titled William Creek and Beyond.
FAILED broker Sonray Capital Markets used about $2 million belonging to high-profile property developer the Deague family as equity, a court has heard.Sonray co-founder Russell Johnson told the Supreme Court he had ''racked his brains'' over the fate of a $1.99 million deposit from the Deague family, whose Asian Pacific Building Corporation is behind the Art Series group of hotels named after famous Australian artists.Mr Johnson admitted he used between $100,000 and $525,000 of funds belonging to Sonray clients to pay personal expenses including family bills and school fees.Sonray also made more than $500,000 worth of transactions that benefited Mr Johnson's father-in-law, John Murray, the father of Sonray chief executive Scott Murray, yesterday's administrator's examination heard.Sonray, which specialised in contracts for difference (CFDs), went into administration in June with a $46 million shortfall in client funds.Mr Johnson said he met Will Deague two or three weeks ago to discuss the fate of the clan's Sonray accounts. ''I think we need to plant that money tree in the backyard,'' Ms Murray said in the email, sent in May last year. It was on this trip, that the idea for the Art Series Hotels was born.In 2009 Will made this vision a reality taking charge of the $500 million Art Series Hotel Group project. The new and never occupied Welbeck Avenue home – between the Point King Jetty and the Sorrento Golf Club – offered its new owner an “instant” Portsea lifestyle, being sold fully furnished. Murray was able to later withdraw $1.19 million from Sonray’s funds to return to the Deague family, claiming the rest was trapped in “suspended shares".