Business profile
Australian owned bus-body manufacturer.
Major supplier of the Australian transport industry with government contracts.
Turnover circa $50 million.
Creditors totalling $13.8 million.
Background
Custom Bus is an Australian manufacturer focused on building high quality bus bodies for the transport industry. The company held government contracts to supply the public transport sector with bus bodies.
Custom Bus had experienced financial hardship on another occasion and had undergone a previous restructure in 2014 to remove its unprofitable product lines and find a new business owner.
Unfortunately, the business was not able to survive new ownership and as such, Worrells was appointed administrator to undertake another restructure.
Worrells' actions
On appointment, the administrators traded on the business for an eight-week period in a limited capacity to undertake the marketing and sale of the business.
Significant media attention was also managed and responded by the administrators who used the increased publicity to assist in advertising the imminent sale to prospective purchasers.
During this process, Worrells managed the interests of a significant variety of sophisticated and unsophisticated creditors nationally. These included the following groups:
creditors including the ATO, employees (and unions)
suppliers with security over stock
debt-factoring creditors
secured creditors
unsecured creditors.
Outcome
The sale of the business assets has allowed the business to continue under new ownership and allow for the orderly wind down of the entity and access to various other voidable transaction claims that could result in a greater return to unsecured creditors.
Point of difference
Worrells was able to maintain business value by trading the business on for a period of eight weeks, completing as many standing orders as possible and protecting the revenue. This placed the entity into a better financial position to achieve a sale of business that gave creditors the best available return.