The more time that passes, the less likely a buyer will be found for the remaining arms of transport and logistics firm1st Fleet, administrator warns
The more time that passes, the less likely a buyer
will be found for the remaining arms of transport and logistics firm1st Fleet, administrator Antony de Vries of accountancy deVriesTayeh warns.
Having found willing takers for the C-Store and Container divisions in Metcash and Australian Container Freight Services (ACFS) respectively, deVriesTayeh has found the Express and Line Haulage divisions harder to shift.
“As time goes on, it becomes more and more remote, to be honest,” de Vries says of finding more buyers.
The initial meeting of 1st Fleet creditors was held on Monday, with a “committee of inspection” formed.
The committee of nine, which is somewhat larger than is usual, comprises representatives finance company Coface Australia, the Transport Workers Union, leasing companies and trade suppliers.
“We’re happy that we’ve got representation across the different classes of stakeholders,” de Vries says, adding that his firm is optimistic that it will be able to keep such a disparate group working well together.
His firm will now prepare a report for the second and most important creditors meeting.
A date was yet to be decided but that meeting was due “towards the end of May”.
Though it was entirely the creditors’ decision, de Vries says he “wouldn’t be surprised if the company were to go into liquidation at the end of that period, and then the full liquidation responsibilities and investigations and asset realisations and reports to ASIC [would follow].
On the positive side, “a lot of the employees are being picked up at different places”, he adds.
He confirms that Coface brought his firm in to look at 1st Fleet’s debt position, which was found to be in a “difficult state”.
He describes the job as at “the bigger end of the scale” of companies that his firm has tackled in its 20-year history.
On reports about the spending patterns at the top of 1st Fleet, de Vries believes his response has been exaggerated in other media.
His position remains that the speculation was unsubstantiated and unconfirmed and will not undergo thorough investigation unless that situation changes.