Tom Hedley personally owns a 20 per cent stake in NLG. He...

Tom Hedley personally owns a 20 per cent stake in NLG. He acquired the bulk of this stake on February 15, when he was forced to spend $10.2 million on NLG shares after agreeing to personally underwrite a rights issue that failed to attract enough cash from investors. Since then, the shares have shrunk by two-thirds to 3c.

While HLG has been at pains to point out that Hedley’s stake in NLG is a personal one, the close connections between the two companies are undoubtedly lingering in investors’ minds.

The recent trouble at HLG and NLG must have Tom Hedley wondering why on earth he got involved in all this public company stuff. Three years ago he was relatively unknown in the wider Australian business community – a privately wealthy plumber from Cairns who owned a few local businesses and a string of pubs and bottleshops.

In 2006, Hedley entered the public eye when he sold his pub and bottleshop business to Coles for $328 million. He cannily retained the freehold property of 30 of those pubs and these would eventually form the basis of HLG’s portfolio.

Hedley was valued at $715 million on last year’s BRW Rich 200, but it’s been all downhill since then. His stake in HLG was worth $245 million when the company listed last year, but it is now worth just $77 million, less the debt owed under his margin calls. While he’s not exactly headed for the poor-house – on top his extensive business, property and share portfolio, Hedley would have banked about $170 million after selling his 1.5 per stake in Coles Group to Wesfarmers – it’s fair to say listing HLG hasn’t been the money-spinner Hedley hoped for.

Hedley is said to be extremely frustrated by the speculation that has so damaged HLG. For a laid-back character that is most at home having a beer and a punt in one of his Cairns hotels, the harsh lessons being dished out by investors must be hard to take.