Leading businesswoman Janet Holmes à Court has successfully petitioned the Supreme Court of Western Australia to put liquidators into failed cattle business Nebru Plains.
Leading businesswoman Janet Holmes à Court has successfully petitioned the Supreme Court of Western Australia to put liquidators into failed cattle business Nebru Plains.
Mrs Holmes à Court is attempting to recover the nearly $150,000 owed for cattle she sold to the business in late 2003.
Nebru Plains, along with its sister company Nebru Exports, is currently in the hands of Rabobank-appointed receiver manager Ferrier Hodgson.
Freehills partner Steven Penglis, Mrs Holmes à Court’s legal representative, said his client had sought the court appointment of the liquidator to set a start date for determining whether any unfair preference payments were made.
“We will also be having a good look as to whether or not there was any insolvent trading,” Mr Penglis said.
Under corporations’ law a creditor can only examine transactions up to six months before the date of a liquidator’s appointment to see if other creditors were given unfair preference.
If such payments are discovered, the creditor can take action to claim them.
The Australian Tax Office is often the first port of call in such matters because Freedom of Information legislation can be used to gain any information the ATO holds on the business in question.
PPB partner Andrew Birch, a senior member of the court-appointed liquidator team working on Nebru, said it was unlikely Rabobank would fully recover its debts after the Nebru businesses’ assets were sold.
Nebru Plains, which operated a 2,700-hectare property with a feedlot at Three Springs, and Nebru Exports, which ran an export-licensed beef abattoir at Mandurah, were run by husband and wife team Rob and Diana Nottle.
In 2003 the company won the Agribusiness Award for Excellence in Supply Chain Management, a prize sponsored by, ironically, Rabobank.
The company had carved a niche for itself in the niche Japanese and South Korean beef markets but appears to have been hit by the strong Australian dollar and overcapitalisation in infrastructure.
Mr Nottle, who declined to discuss reasons for the business’ failure, said EG Green and Sons, owners of the Harvey Beef brand, had bought the company’s abattoir and a company called Pugh had bought the feedlot.
“We’ve got plans to go on but they’re not quite there yet,” he said.
Mr Nottle refused to elaborate on those plans other than to say it was in an area that he and his wife knew.
