Administrators have revealed a veteran Gold Coast building company owed almost $20m when it went into administration last month, with unsecured creditors unlikely to see a cent if it’s tipped into liquidation.
The report, lodged with ASIC, said employees of Stokes Wheeler were owed up to $1.66m, while unsecured creditors were thought to be owed more than $13.5m.
There were debts to secured creditors of $3.2m – mostly to Westpac.
While the company operated six project trust accounts – intended to protect money owed to subcontractors and suppliers – all had a nil balance when administrators were appointed.
According to the report, the company’s retention account – also intended to pay company debts – had a shortfall of $2.7m and had consequently been frozen by the Queensland Building and Construction Commission.
Meanwhile, the company itself claims it’s owed more than $5.3m in retentions held by developers, some of which are refusing to pay up because of rectification and termination concerns.
Less than 10 per cent is considered “realisable” by the administrators.
Stokes Wheeler, which has offices in Yeronga and Southport,insolvency-fears/news-story/543677e76ee32f8211bdc12fef2b4017″ title=”www.goldcoastbulletin.com.au” data-tgev=”event119″ data-tgev-container=”bodylink” data-tgev-order=”543677e76ee32f8211bdc12fef2b4017″ data-tgev-label=”business” data-tgev-metric=”ev”> went into voluntary administration on February 3, with Roland Robson and Bill Cotter…