Ex-wife battles 'cheater' Perrin for Billabong mansion

Matthew Perrin was former CEO of the distinctive Aussie surfwear brand Billabong.

His rise was dramatic, his fall equally spectacular.

Now Matthew Perrin, former chief executive of the surfwear brand Billabong, has been accused of cheating on his ex-wife and forging her signature on documents that could see her lose the family mansion on the Queensland Gold Coast.

The couple featured in the 2008 BRW Rich List, which estimated their joint wealth at A$150 million ($201 million). The following year Perrin filed for bankruptcy, with debts of A$28 million, after a failed business venture in China.

Now penniless, Perrin - a former lawyer who made a fortune in his late 20s selling off his Billabong shares - has been forced to endure details of his private life being aired in the Queensland Supreme Court, where Nicole Perrin is trying to prevent the Commonwealth Bank from repossessing her home.

The couple were teenage sweethearts, but in 2005 Nicole began to suspect her husband of having an affair. According to testimony reported in yesterday's Sun-Herald, he would pull out of holidays at the last minute, and was constantly on the phone. She heard rumours he was seeing Belinda Otton, a mother at the school attended by their three children.

Nicole Perrin - who twice hired private investigators to follow her husband - told the court that he bought a second mobile phone, which he used to send text messages during a family holiday in Hawaii. She also found in his suitcase a diamond bracelet and a Gucci dress two sizes too small for her.

Although Perrin eventually admitted to having an affair, his wife decided to stay with him. But as his financial world collapsed in 2008, and his debts mounted, Perrin borrowed A$13.5 million from the Commonwealth Bank, using their A$15 million house in Surfers Paradise as surety.

Nicole Perrin claims she would never have signed the mortgage documents.

The house had been bought in her name, after Perrin made A$66 million in 2002 from the sale of two-thirds of his Billabong stake. With their newfound wealth, the family went skiing in New Zealand, holidayed on Queensland's Hayman Island, sent their children to private schools and bought racehorses and a A$130,000 Mercedes.

Nicole Perrin told the court that Perrin was "a liar and a cheater". The couple are now divorced.

Perrin has signed a statutory declaration confessing to forgery, but the bank has questioned its reliability.