September 4, 2026 — 1:30pmCollapsed major Sydney developer Bathla Group owes creditors at least $3.4 billion, as administrators confirm work on construction sites could grind to a halt if funding isn’t secured by Monday.Administrator Teneo told creditors on Friday that “positive discussions” were continuing with five of the company’s 43 lenders to gain funding to keep construction going, with Monday morning set as the deadline.Administrators have revealed Bathla Group’s mounting debt.Janie BarrettIf the five lenders commit funding, work on its projects will continue, but Teneo would not fund the projects the other lenders are involved in, stopping construction on those sites.Preliminary figures provided at the first creditors meeting on Friday show Bathla’s debts include $3.08 billion to lenders, $145 million to the Australian Tax Office, $130 million to other unsecured creditors and $42 million in land tax. Debts will “go up and down as time goes on”, administrator Teneo said.Bathla Group – and its 542 individual entities – entered into voluntary administration last week. For the past few days, Teneo has been desperately negotiating with lenders to secure short-term funding to stave off liquidation.“The group, as I said, from day one, has had literally no cash,” Teneo’s Andrew Scott said on Friday.“So we’ve been really focused on raising liquidity to provide short-term funding to obtain immediate funding to pay things like wages and other critical operating expenses.”The company owes $4 million to its employees. Teneo said on Thursday it would provide Bathla’s staff with a partial payment, covering wages accrued from when administrators were appointed.The company’s 300-plus staff had not been paid for eight weeks, the administrator said on Monday. Due to cashflow restraints, 21 employees and subcontractors have been stood down.Bathla has 45 projects under construction in NSW set to deliver about 2500 homes, but administrators said the developer also has a significant land bank holding, at various stages of development.“Based on our investigations to date, we believe there is around $400 million of stock that is currently for sale or under contract. However, we also understand that there will be no liquidity flowing to the group from this stock in the near term,” Teneo’s Rebecca Gill said.The administrator is also seeking to prevent the suspension of Bathla Group’s building licenses by Building Commission NSW, which issued the notice of intention after the company entered voluntary administration. If the developer goes into liquidation, the licenses would be automatically cancelled.Later on Friday, the state’s building regulator hit Raj & Jai Construction, a related entity of Bathla’s, with a building work rectification order to fix seven serious defects at an apartment building in Seven Hills.It comes after Building Commission NSW issued a prohibition and building work rectification order on Thursday for Bathla’s Kembla Grange development – a key project that would provide 108 units and is already 80 per cent sold.Prior to the collapse of Bathla, the commission confirmed it had completed more than 40 inspections of the group’s sites over the past few months. When the Herald asked Bathla about these inspections last month, a spokesperson said the company’s records indicated the agency had only conducted five inspections “with no issues noted”.A meeting with staff has been scheduled for Monday morning to provide an update on funding and on which sites construction can continue.From our partners