Some of Australia's wealthiest and best-connected business people are behind the company that issued elderly tenants with negotiable termination notices for 12 previously government-owned houses in Homebush. The company sold the houses within months of acquiring them, almost doubling its investment.

Centennial Property Group offered cash settlements and asked the tenants to leave the properties on Welfare Street and Flemington Road in Homebush shortly after buying the properties from the state government's Sydney Olympic Park Authority in June.

Gerald Donnelly, a former abbatoir worker, and wife Grace in the house in Homebush they have rented for 33 years. Credit:Nic Walker

Seven families moved out but five are fighting to stay, including Gerald and Grace Donnelly. The five families armed with sales documents that specify they are protected tenants. They also have letters from the previous owners, the state government's Sydney Olympic Park Authority, which say there was no intention to end their tenancies.

CPG's owners include Alex Waislitz, a long-standing adviser to the Pratt family and worth hundreds of millions of dollars in his own right*.