Clay and Kyara Larcombe must have felt they represented the incredible opportunity of Sydney’s capital class. Young, glamorous and rich, they burst onto the city’s social scene in the early 2020s. He ran a promising investment fund. She styled mansions.
Now, their dreams of greatness lie shattered — and their marriage may end. Mr Larcombe’s firm, PAC Capital, was placed in liquidation last Thursday. The following day a magistrate issued an apprehended domestic violence order against him on behalf of his wife.
Among the AVO’s conditions is a requirement for Mr Larcombe to stay away from the stylist “for at least 12 hours after drinking alcohol or taking illicit drugs” and not to “destroy or damage any property or harm an animal” belonging to her.
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In the same hearing, Magistrate Karen Stafford allowed Mr Larcombe to remain on bail for an assault charge made against him a week earlier. The alleged victim was a 38-year-old woman, according to the police.
Online gambling
PAC Capital was going to be their vehicle to join the city’s wealthy elite. Specialising in online gambling and gaming, Mr Larcombe’s company managed around $400 million (the precise figure was unclear) on behalf of investors, many of them retirees from Victoria’s Gippsland region. He put the firm’s name atop an office building in Sydney’s financial district, and bought a large house on one of the city’s most-expensive streets.
Not all the investments were successful. A German company he chaired, Bayes Esports Solutions, went broke last year. Two months ago the media regulator ruled another of his businesses, online gambling site Picklebet, breached the national self-exclusion register, which helps addicts cut themselves off from the industry. Mr Larcombe held a personal stake in Picklebet, where he chaired the board, while allocating investors’ money to the company. The potential conflict wasn’t well known.
He was accused of embellishing his curriculum vitae by citing jobs he never held and an economics degree his university did not offer. An investigation by the corporate regulator led him to stand down from the boards of two of his company’s investments in 2023.
“Unfortunately everything has gone sideways at the wrong time,” a former employee said.
Property purchases
After adverse publicity damaged PAC Capital’s brand, Mr Larcombe sold most of his funds management business in 2024. He kept a $30 million venture capital business, set up an investment firm in Abu Dhabi specialising in artificial intelligence and renovated a grand French-style property in Bowral.
That house and another in Bellevue Hill were put on sale last year for around $70 million. The Bellevue Hill house, which has a tennis court and a pool, is being sold by the Larcombes’ mortgage provider. A second, $2.25 million mortgage on the property is charging 20 per cent, an extreme rate indicating high risk.
The couple’s $7.5m estate in Bowral. Credit: Phil Winterton/Phil Winterton
The $7.5 million Bowral property, which Ms Larcombe lavishly renovated, was listed on Airbnb for $19,000 a night as a wedding venue. There are at least three mortgages over the property. It is unclear if it is still up for sale.
Ms Larcombe referred calls to a lawyer. Mr Larcombe couldn’t be reached for comment.
The entrepreneur’s lenders may have decided to liquidate PAC Capital to cover debts over the two houses, according to a person familiar with the situation. The properties became an important part of the couple’s public persona, combining Instagram-worthy style with professional success that culminated in a black-tie wedding last year at the Bowral property that was covered in a bridal magazine.
Separation
Mr Larcombe rarely drank and was extremely fitness conscious, according to someone who knows him. Ms Larcombe loved fashion.
The couple have separated and are living apart, according to a person who knows them.
In interviews, both presented themselves as pursuing business for personal fulfilment instead of money.
Describing why he did not pursue a career in investment banking, Mr Larcombe last year told CEO Middle East magazine that: “It became less about the money for me, and more about what I was building.”
His wife told a real estate podcast last year she would style homes being sold for pleasure. “If you’ll do it for free, you’ll do it better than everyone getting paid,” she said.
Mr Larcombe’s speciality, though, was the new and little-understood world of Esports. He promised to help investors tap into the popularity of online gaming and betting among younger men.
“We’ve reached a place where you can have an asset allocation to Esports or innovation in your super without taking on huge amounts of risk,” he told the Financial Review in 2022. “The world is changing very fast and your portfolio should probably reflect that.”
Despite some successes, the industry hasn’t become the phenomenon that he predicted. A fund listed on the share market, the VanEck Video Gaming and Esports ETF, has fallen 11.6 per cent over the past year.
