The liquidators responsible for cleaning up after the collapse of Retravision Southern have proven that fiscal wrangling with debtors and creditors can be a highly costly affair, according to minutes from a recent meeting.

While anyone in the industry would expect liquidators KordaMentha to be dealing with large sums of money coming in (or, more appropriately, being chased down) from debtors, few would think of the huge sums that those liquidators themselves pick up in the process.

But for tasks completed from 26 July to 14 October 2012 – a period of just 81 days – liquidators sought $384,232.50 in remuneration, not including GST.

While UnderCurrent hopes that there would be a number of pencil pushers working on this case, there were only two KordaMentha partners mentioned in a July report to administrators. So for 81 days, what does almost $4K pay those accounting professionals? $2871.81 each per day, or $296.48 an hour.

Let’s hope this is over quickly so there's still something left over for the creditors.