Melbourne property developer The Punvec Group Pty Ltd, founded and chaired by Indian-Australian businessman Rupinder Singh Brar, has had a receiver and manager appointed as the company also faces a separate application seeking to wind it up, a review of corporate and court records shows.
The developments mark a major test for a business that has built a sizeable presence across Melbourne’s western growth corridor and promoted residential, industrial and mixed-use projects from Tarneit and Thornhill Park to Cobblebank, South Melbourne and Geelong.
ASIC-derived insolvency data shows Todd Andrew Gammel was appointed receiver and manager of The Punvec Group Pty Ltd on 30 July 2026. Gammel is a restructuring and insolvency specialist at HLB Mann Judd and heads the firm’s Sydney Restructuring and Risk Advisory division.
Corporate information provider CreditorWatch, drawing on ASIC data, now records The Punvec Group’s status as “Under External Administration And/Or Controller Appointed”. The company’s ABN nevertheless remains active, and it remains registered for GST.
A receivership does not, by itself, mean a company has been liquidated.
ASIC explains that a receiver is generally appointed by a secured creditor to take control of some or all secured assets and recover money owed. Where the appointee also has power to manage the company’s affairs, the person is described as a receiver and manager.
The publicly available data reviewed by The Australia Today does not identify in the search results the secured creditor responsible for the 30 July appointment or the amount of debt involved.
The receivership comes alongside separate court action.
Punvec disputes suggestions that the company is insolvent.
Punvec Group has also issued a statement rejecting what it described as “false and misleading claims” circulating on social media about the financial position of the company and its chairman, Rupinder Brar.
The company said Brar has not been declared bankrupt and is not the subject of any bankruptcy declaration. It also maintained that Punvec remains solvent and continues to trade, with active projects and a development pipeline. Punvec said it had instructed lawyers to review publications it alleges wrongly characterised Brar’s personal financial position and was considering possible defamation action.
The company said it is involved in a commercial dispute with one counterparty over a contested amount, which is now before the court, and stressed that the claim is being defended.
Punvec said the existence of a disputed debt should not be treated as proof of insolvency, nor should proceedings involving the company be conflated with Brar’s personal financial position. The company pointed to the recent completion and handover of The Murray residential development at Thornhill Park and said construction on a funded commercial project at Diggers Rest is due to begin shortly.
Brar said purchasers, partners and trades deserved “straight answers” about the company’s position. “There is a difference between reporting a court matter and publishing that a man has been declared bankrupt when he has not,” he said.
“In the meantime we have just handed over a completed project at Thornhill Park and we start on the ground at Diggers Rest in a fortnight. That is the business, and it is continuing.”
An ASIC notice published on 5 August 2026 records an application to wind up The Punvec Group Pty Ltd, ACN 622 043 609, brought by Hanxiang Zhou.
The official notice says the application was commenced on 7 July 2026. Mills Oakley is listed in connection with the plaintiff.
A winding-up application is an application to a court and should not be confused with a winding-up order. It does not, on its own, establish that the company has been liquidated.
Public corporate records reviewed this week continue to show Punvec’s ABN as active, while ASIC-sourced records reflect the receiver/controller appointment.
The same plaintiff, Hanxiang Zhou, has also lodged a winding-up application against Wells St Developments Pty Ltd, another company associated with a major Punvec property project in South Melbourne. That application was also commenced on 7 July and published on 5 August.
Wells St Developments has been behind the redevelopment proposal for 200–204 Wells Street, South Melbourne.
Planning documents lodged with the City of Port Phillip identify Wells St Developments as the permit applicant and describe architectural and planning work undertaken for a major redevelopment of the site. A land title search contained in council planning material showed Wells St Developments acquired the property in December 2020.
The site has previously been associated publicly with Punvec. Planning material prepared by Bates Smart identified its client as Pomeroy Pacific on behalf of The Punvec Group and Wells St Developments.
The Australian reported in late 2025 that Victoria’s State Revenue Office had placed a statutory charge over the Wells Street property in relation to unpaid land tax. At the time, Brar said rising land tax had affected many Victorian developers and that his business had entered into a payment arrangement with the SRO.
Punvec’s own website continues to describe the company as a residential and commercial property developer.
It lists Rupinder Brar as chairman and founder and Sarabjot Dhillon as director and co-founder. Harman Virk is listed as director of finance.
The Punvec corporate entity was originally registered as Punvic Group Pty Ltd on 3 October 2017, before changing its name to The Punvec Group Pty Ltd in November that year. The “punvec” business name has been registered since November 2017.
Punvec describes itself as operating across market research, sales strategy, project marketing, development management and construction and trade management.
Its website lists among its current projects The Tarneit Place, Thornhill Gardens, a residential project at Murray Road in Thornhill Park and Cobblebank Business Park.
Thornhill Gardens is described by Punvec as a 2,000-lot residential subdivision, while its Murray Road project is listed at about 200 lots. Cobblebank Business Park is described as an 85-acre industrial subdivision.
Punvec also lists a substantial pipeline of proposed projects, including 170 townhouses at Fraser Rise, 350 residential lots at Charlemont, 400 lots in Shepparton, a 130-acre industrial project in Craigieburn, a 100-acre business park in Charlemont and mixed-use developments in South Melbourne and Airport West.
The listing of a project on Punvec’s website does not necessarily establish its current ownership, financing position or construction status, particularly following the appointment of a receiver.
One of Punvec’s higher-profile western Melbourne investments came through the acquisition of the stalled New Gardens Estate in Thornhill Park.
Realestate.com.au reported that a consortium involving Punvec Group, NBEyeland and Batra Group, operating through LandxWise, acquired the development after the previous project stalled.
About 150 buyers had already signed contracts for lots, some dating back to 2019. The new consortium said it decided to honour those contracts rather than terminate them and resell the lots at contemporary prices.
Punvec has also previously sought to build its profile through community and sporting partnerships.
In 2019, the Western Bulldogs announced Punvec as a club partner. Brar, then described as Punvec’s chief executive, said the company was heavily involved in its local community and passionate about competitive sport.
Brar’s business interests, however, extend well beyond property.
His biography with New Zealand medicinal cannabis research business Greenlab describes him as a qualified engineer with a master’s degree in information technology from La Trobe University.
It says he entered business in 2009 when he acquired Barkly International College before expanding into property. Greenlab lists Brar as a director responsible for fund generation and wealth management.
Barkly International College became the subject of major regulatory action.
The Australian Skills Quality Authority cancelled the vocational education provider’s registration in May 2024 after an extensive compliance investigation.
The college challenged that decision, but on 26 January 2026 the Administrative Review Tribunal affirmed ASQA’s cancellation, leaving Barkly deregistered.
ASQA described the former RTO as “critically non-compliant”.
The tribunal found the problems were not limited to isolated administrative mistakes but extended across training and assessment, quality assurance, governance, certification, marketing, student management and reporting.
Those findings related to Barkly International College and its operations. They should not be represented as a finding of misconduct against Punvec, which is a separate corporate entity.
Brar also entered professional basketball in India.
In 2024 he was publicly identified as founder and director of INBL Pro, a six-franchise professional basketball competition launched with ambitions to develop the sport commercially in India. At the launch, Brar was also identified as chairman of Punvec Group.
The venture later ran into financial controversy.
The Australian reported in February 2026 that players, coaches, the Basketball Federation of India and service providers were pursuing payments connected with the competition, with overall claims said to run into millions of dollars.
Brar disputed parts of the figures reported but acknowledged payment problems, saying he had invested more than $5 million into developing basketball in India and attributing some of the problems to operational management and contracts he said he had not been aware of.
Brar has also become a recognisable figure within sections of Melbourne’s Indian-Australian business and community network.
He attended a private dinner in Toorak in November 2024 that was also attended by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews and Indian-Australian business figures.
The event subsequently attracted political and media attention over speculation that it was connected with Labor fundraising. Brar later said he had neither organised nor funded the dinner, while there has been no public finding that his attendance involved wrongdoing.
He has also been involved with sporting, business and Indian diaspora initiatives and is identified by the Modi&US community organisation as president of the Indian Minorities Foundation Australia.
The latest corporate developments are particularly important because Punvec is not simply a small standalone development vehicle.
Its brand is attached to housing and commercial developments across some of Victoria’s fastest-growing areas, particularly Melbourne’s west.
Its Tarneit project is recognised by Wyndham City Council in its development infrastructure material, while Punvec’s website advertises a pipeline covering thousands of proposed residential lots and hundreds of acres of industrial land.
The appointment of a receiver and manager now raises questions about which Punvec assets fall within the receivership, how individual development entities are structured, whether projects will continue as planned and what the winding-up proceedings could mean for creditors, investors, contractors and purchasers.
Those questions cannot be answered merely from Punvec’s headline corporate status.
Property groups frequently operate individual projects through separate companies, trusts, joint ventures or special-purpose vehicles. The appointment of a receiver to The Punvec Group Pty Ltd therefore does not automatically mean every development marketed under the Punvec brand is in receivership.
Similarly, projects undertaken with consortium partners may have ownership and financing arrangements separate from the Punvec parent or brand.
There is also a distinction between the company’s ABN status and its ASIC insolvency status.
The Australian Business Register continues to list The Punvec Group Pty Ltd as active, but ASIC-sourced corporate information records that a controller or external appointee has been appointed. An active ABN does not mean a business is free from receivership or other insolvency proceedings.
This is not the first time Punvec has been the subject of winding-up proceedings.
ASIC records show Resdal Corp (Vic) Pty Ltd filed a winding-up application against The Punvec Group in December 2021. The company was not ultimately wound up as a consequence of that notice and continued operating afterwards.
A related VCAT building and property matter at the time named Resdal Corp, Land and New Development Victoria, The Punvec Group and several individuals, including Rupinder Singh Brar.
The latest 2026 proceedings are nevertheless materially different because ASIC-derived records now show an actual receiver and manager appointment, rather than merely an application by a creditor.
For Brar, the developments come after a period in which several parts of his wider business portfolio have encountered legal, regulatory or financial pressure: Barkly International College has lost its final appeal against deregistration, his basketball venture has faced disputed payment claims, a company behind his South Melbourne development has faced land-tax recovery action, and both that company and Punvec are now targets of winding-up applications.
At the same time, Punvec continues to present itself publicly as a developer with a substantial project portfolio and a focus on growing communities.
Its website says the company’s approach is built around “integrity and leadership” and continues to promote its projects and South Melbourne office.
The immediate issue is what happens next under the receivership and the outstanding court proceedings.
ASIC says a receiver and manager may have authority to manage company affairs while attempting to realise secured assets and repay a secured creditor. The precise powers depend on the terms under which the receiver was appointed.
As of 27 August 2026, the publicly accessible corporate information reviewed by The Australia Today establishes that Todd Gammel was appointed receiver and manager of The Punvec Group on 30 July, and that Hanxiang Zhou has brought winding-up applications against both The Punvec Group and Wells St Developments.
It does not establish that Punvec has been liquidated, nor does the existence of a winding-up application itself prove insolvency.
What it does establish is that one of Melbourne’s better-known Indian-Australian property development businesses — and the entrepreneur who built his profile across education, property, sport and diaspora networks — has entered a potentially consequential new phase of financial and legal scrutiny.
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