Koala Forklift was established in 1981 with over 30 years of experience in providing customers with quality service and equipment. Specialising in all areas of forklift machinery for customers wanting to buy, hire, repair, or service. It had a strong reputation in its market and a very large customer list.
Koala Forklift offered customers a large range of warehouse storage and safety solutions to improve the operations and safety of their customer’s business.
The Company was placed into liquidation through a court application following the passing away of the last director, Mr Anatole Kowaliw in May 2022 leaving the Company without any directors or living shareholders. In addition, the Company had built up creditors, had recently been impacted by COVID, and was insolvent at the time of our appointment. The business was trading, and it was our view on our appointment to continue trading the Company in order to maximise the outcome for creditors. In order to achieve the best possible outcome for the business we made a further application to place the Company into voluntary administration and to obtain the protection of the many contracts that the Company was subject to through their customer base and financiers.
After reviewing the affairs of the Company and advertising the business for sale, we accepted an offer that was structured in the form of a Deed of Company Arrangement (“DOCA”) so as to obtain the benefit of moratorium protections available during an administration.
Background
Koala Forklifts operated from Wetherill Park in NSW. The Company had not traded at a profit in recent years but had a strong reputation and client base and had a significant amount of carried forward losses accumulated over a number of years.
How did we assist
During the liquidation and voluntary administration, our focus was on the following key aspects:
- Conducting an urgent assessment of the Company’s financial position and cashflow requirements.
- Making an urgent application to the Court to place the Company into voluntary administration to obtain the benefit of moratorium protections.
- Continuing to trade the business through the liquidation as well as administration period, preserving the value of the Company’s presence in the transport and warehousing industry.
- Marketing the business for sale.
- Holding discussions with various interested parties.
- Negotiating with the buyers to buy the business through a DOCA.
- Negotiating with other relevant parties to propose a DOCA.
- Preparing our reports to creditors, presenting the findings of our investigations to creditors and outlining the proposed DOCA.
- Holding a meeting of creditors in which they voted to support the proposed DOCA.
- Appointed new directors for the Company including the issue of shares to the deed proponents as part of the terms of the DOCA.
- The DOCA was recently executed, and we are currently in the process of making an application to the Court to terminate the liquidation
Outcome
The business was handed back to the newly appointed directors and continues to operate today.
The former employees are scheduled to receive full payment of their outstanding entitlements while the entitlements owed to the continuing employees remained with the Company.
