By Claire Reilly
There have been weeks and months of speculation surrounding the future of Retravision Southern after the company announced it was under administration in May, but following the second meeting of creditors in Melbourne late last week, the company has finally been placed into liquidation.
Speaking to Current.com.au about the process, liquidator Bryan Webster of KordaMentha said that placing Retravision Southern into liquidation was the only option going forward.
“The creditors voted to place the companies into liquidation, so that’s occurring effective today," he said late last Thursday.
“There was no deed of company arrangement being proposed, so obviously if there’s no option for the creditors to vote on a deed because nobody’s put up a deed, then invariably the company will be placed into liquidation.
“That’s what happened. The creditors – obviously they are, for the large part, the suppliers – they’ve voted for the company to go into liquidation.”
Click here to sign up for our FREE daily newsletter
Follow Current.com.au on Twitter
According to Webster, the priority for the liquidators is to finalise accounts so that debts can be recovered and viable Retravision stores can be allowed to exit the group.
“I think everyone’s aware that we’re there and we’re realising these assets of Retravision Southern Limited, and we’re going through the reconciliations of the stores so that stores can pay out their accounts,” he said. We’ve now got a majority of stores that have exited or are in the process of being exited.
“There are approximately 45 who have exited. Then you’ve got a lot of stores that have paid their accounts up to date but there are just some claims that we’re working through with them, utilising the remaining RVS staff.
“These stores are the priority at the moment because obviously they are the easiest to convert to exits and they do not have overdue accounts. Exiting allows the store owners to get on with their lives, set up new supply lines and continue to trade. There are about 12 to 15 of those stores that we’re currently working through.”
In addition to these two groups of stores, Webster said there were “approximately 7” Retravision Southern stores that have either “gone into liquidation on their own behalf”, that RVS management took action over before the company went into administration or that the administrators themselves had made appointments over due to overdue accounts.
“Then you’ve got the balance of stores, which are stores that we’ve either entered into short term payment arrangements with, or who owe us a disputed amount and generally we’re in discussions with,” concluded Webster. “But there’s a potential there that if they’re not communicating with us and their accounts remain overdue, I’ll be forced to make further appointments.”
According to Webster, there are roughly 40 stores in this final group.