The Mysterious Man Behind the Collapsed Cut-Price Airline Bonza: A Tale of Financial Turmoil

The Rise and Fall of Bonza: A Tale of Financial Turmoil and Legal Battles

He appears confused, frightened even, mouth slightly agape, droopy eyes, a well-groomed, innocent-looking student barely in his 20s.

Incongruously, the shot, now more than two decades old, is of a detainee, hauled in by Florida police in Miami after being arrested for possession of 31 grams of cocaine, just over an ounce in the old measurement, with a street value back then of about $US6,200.

Unbeknown to the hapless youth, a drugs task force had been tracking the package and pounced once Joshua Craig Wander opened it.

Incredibly, for a crime that ordinarily might have carried a 20-plus year jail sentence, Wander somehow managed to avoid prison and instead ended up with a 16-year probation sentence after pleading no contest in court.

Nor did it dent his career prospects. From that February 2004 bust, he went on to graduate from the University of Florida and forge a career in the world of finance.

Meet the mysterious man behind the collapsed cut-price airline Bonza, which was caught in the crossfire of what appears to be a dramatic falling out between Wander and his former mentor and backer, insurance and aircraft leasing mogul Kenneth King. Bonza has been in the skies for little more than a year.

Barely in the skies for 15 months, administrators at accountancy firm Hall Chadwick are desperately casting around for potential new backers to keep the airline afloat.

But there appears to be little hope for the beleaguered start-up.

When three of Bonza’s four aircraft were impounded after being repossessed last week — reportedly with passengers on board — the airline’s Australian management supposedly were stunned.

But its financing travails had been widely reported and either Wander’s 777 Partners or his former ally Kenneth King had already called in restructuring firm KordaMentha to advise on whether they should continue supporting the operation.

A repeat grounding

It’s not the first time a 777 Partners-backed airline has had its planes repossessed. An aircraft in the fleet of Canadian budget carrier Flair Airline.

In March last year, just weeks after Bonza took to the skies, low-cost Canadian airline Flair – in which Wander’s 777 Partners has a controlling interest – had four jets seized on the tarmac by bailiffs over unpaid leasing charges.

It was just one of a growing number of disputes in which 777 Partners has become embroiled, with court battles over late or non-payments stretching across its recently constructed empire.

Wander built the company – which claims to have a unique model of investing its own money rather than relying upon investors – with Steve Pasko, a colleague at a former financing group, at rapid speed.

According to its website, the strategy to bypass banks and investors was formulated “to overcome the inherent compromises they saw in the prevailing model”.

Which begs the obvious question. Where did all the original money come from?

To which the pair have a simple explanation. They got lucky early, made a motza and that allowed them to rapidly expand.

Initially, the business was involved strictly in finance.

Formed in 2015, it was what’s known as an “aggregator”, scooping up annuities at a discount from individuals and organisations desperate for up-front cash. Its other main money spinner was in reinsurance, a high-risk business that insures the exposures of other insurers.

But it then expanded into a dizzying array of unusual, high-profile but ultimately loss-making ventures. And that’s when the court disputes – at least at a corporate level – began.

Cracks in fuselage

The Bonza collapse may be big news here. But it is a mere blip in the unfolding drama across the globe as 777 Partners faces fire on almost all fronts.

During the past seven years, this mysterious, little-known operation has plunged hundreds of millions of dollars into businesses that lose money. 777 Partners owns a stake in multiple Europa League winners Sevilla.

That includes buying large stakes in some of the world’s best-known European football teams, which alone appears enough to sink the 777 Partners operation. But more on that later.

Trouble began percolating through the organisation late last year when its once-lucrative reinsurance operation, 777Re, had its credit rating slashed to CCC from A, prompting the Bermuda Monetary Authority to assume administrative control of the operation as it investigated its finances.

That set off a chain reaction.

US financial authorities then questioned the viability of the operation, forcing Wander’s once great mentor, King, to back away or risk being swept up in the mess.

And that appears to have been the catalyst that finally set the 777 Partners house on fire, with Bonza being swept up in the conflagration.

King’s company, A-CAP, is a sprawling financial enterprise concentrated on leasing, insurance, and aviation.

Not only was he using the 777 Partners reinsurance business to cover his corporation’s insurance policies – funnelling hundreds of millions of dollars in business its way – he was reportedly lending cash to the group and was involved in aircraft leasing joint ventures.

In a webinar to investors last month, shortly after 777Re had been downgraded, he explained why he was severing relations with the group.

“777Re has been disruptive to A-CAP in the sense that they went from an A-minus rating in November to a C-minus rating just the other day and that’s unfortunate for a lot of reasons,” he explained.

One reason, he said, was that 777 Partners “wasn’t being managed in the way it needed to be, but secondly, it’s created an emphasis for the ratings agencies to punish insurance companies that use unrated reinsurers.

“We’re actively taking steps to correct that,” he added.

One of those steps was to last month unwind a joint ownership arrangement with 777 Partners over 30 Boeing 737 Max aircraft, with an A-CAP offshoot, AIP, assuming full control.

Three of those planes were leased to Bonza until this week. King obviously formed the view that Bonza didn’t earn enough cash to pay for his aircraft.

That’s not surprising. Bonza’s boss, former Virgin Blue executive Tim Jordan, claimed from the outset that he needed 10 aircraft to make the new operation viable. When he called in administrators this week, he had just four.

The large Boeing 737s are arguably the wrong fit for Bonza, flying second and third-tier routes, and appear to have been used as a means to soak up the US backer’s fleet and provide it with income.

Jordan was facing other pressures too. Many of the routes Bonza was flying were lesser-known, smaller airports, and local authorities, overjoyed at the prospect of attracting new arrivals, either waived or reduced airport fees.

A year in, and those honeymoon deals were ending, straining Bonza’s finances.

Football fetish delivers a financial finale

There’s only one thing that fascinates the public more than airlines, and that’s sport.

In the past two years, 777 Partners has amassed sizeable stakes in a stable of high-profile soccer teams, bringing seven football clubs in seven countries into its orbit, for an estimated outlay of close to a billion dollars.

Starting with Spanish giant Sevilla, it then took control of the historic Genoa CFC, moved across the Atlantic to Brazil with the purchase of Vasco da Gama, then Belgium’s Standard Liege, Red Star in Paris, and Hertha BSC in Germany. 777 Partners owns a significant stake in A-League club Melbourne Victory.

Its most recent expansion was Melbourne Victory with a $US6.1 million investment last year and promises of a further $US20 million by 2028. All up, analysts estimate it has spent around $US900 million on its foray into professional football.

But its latest bid for Everton Football Club in the English Premier League has thrust it into the spotlight. And it has attracted the prying eyes of a group of investigative journalists publishing a website and magazine called Josimar, which has unearthed a swag of court cases across the 777 Partners empire, mostly for defaults on loans. 777 Partners are trying to purchase the historic, but currently struggling, English Premier League side Everton.

The Everton purchase has been continuously delayed, with the New York Times reporting that the UK Financial Conduct Authority has not been provided with the documents it has demanded for the sale to proceed.

Everton has been in trouble with the football authorities under its current ownership, for posting losses that exceed the league’s financial fair play rules.

Already docked points once this season, a penalty reduced from 10 points to six on appeal, it’s at risk of relegation out of the top tier of English football, with the prospect of a further points deduction for more alleged financial fair play breaches in the most recent completed financial year.

In addition to football teams, 777 Partners has plunged into UK basketball, owning the UK Basketball League along with the UK Lions.

While many blanch at the amount of cash outlaid on the expansion, the biggest problem for 777 Partners is that none of the clubs are profitable. Each requires ongoing financial support just to stay afloat.

That has strained finances right across the group, accompanied by mounting legal disputes over unpaid debts, the most prominent of which is from Russian oligarch Oleg Boyko over missed instalments on an 8.5 million euro loan to help fund the initial purchase of the group’s stake in Sevilla FC.

While Chadwick desperately casts the net for a savior for Bonza, the growing alarm in the UK and North America over the long-delayed purchase of Everton FC – which is bleeding cash – has overshadowed the problems of a tiny, cut-price Australian airline start-up.

But its demise potentially creates further legal troubles for 777 Partners and the prospect of more unwanted financial disclosures.

Wander’s run of luck may have hit the wall.

The ABC contacted 777 Partners to ask for comment about these issues as well as the collapse of Bonza, but had not received any response by publication.