Embattled shipbuilder Wave-Master International Pty Ltd has slipped into administration amid revelations that it has been sold to a sister company that may have played a role in its demise.
Embattled shipbuilder Wave-Master International Pty Ltd has slipped into administration amid revelations that it has been sold to a sister company that may have played a role in its demise.
According to an October 29 announcement to the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange from Penang Shipbuilding and Construction Industries, all of the issued and paid-up share capital in WaveMaster had been transferred to Singaporean company JR Marine Systems Pte Ltd “free of encumbrances”, for $100,000.
JR Marine commissioned and then later cancelled a 38-metre ferry project that has been blamed for the debts that led to WaveMaster’s troubles.
PSCI and JR Marine are both part of the Business Focus Group of Malaysian businessman Tan Sri Amin Shah Omar Shah.
On November 4 WaveMaster’s board appointed Anthony Elkerton and David Young from the Sydney office of accounting firm William Buck as interim administrators. WaveMaster chairman Noordin bin Abdullah has confirmed to WA Business News that William Buck also acts for PSCI as its auditor.
That appointment came two days after the 30 workers remaining with the business were sent home because WaveMaster could not pay its workers’ compensation insurance premiums.
Australian Manufacturing Workers Union official Steve Mc-Cartney said he would be lobbying to oppose William Buck’s permanent appointment as administrator at the creditors’ meeting to be held on November 11.
He said employees had been told by William Buck senior manager Trish Needham the administrator was confident WaveMaster had sufficient assets to cover workers’ entitlements.
“I think more will be revealed on Thursday [at the creditors’ meeting],” Mr McCartney said.
Ms Needham told WA Business News there was no link between William Buck Business Recovery and PSCI.
That WaveMaster is in administration would be of little surprise to the company’s workers, many of whom are owed eight weeks’ wages and have not had their superannuation paid since February.
They had also watched the workforce fall from about 100 at the beginning of the year as the wages squeeze tightened.
WaveMaster general manager Malcolm Swaddle estimated the outstanding wages bill to be between $300,000 and $400,000 and the company’s total debts to be about $3 million.
He said the 38-metre ferry at the heart of WaveMaster’s problems had a sale price of $5.8 million and a total cost of $4.6 million.
“The sad thing about this is, if we had been able to keep going, we would have had about $20 million work for next year,” Mr Swaddle said.
Besides finishing the JR Marine-commissioned vessel, which Mr Swaddle said had a buyer, Wave-Master also has a $6 million job to build a ferry for Danish ferry company Christiansoefarten, and another similar sized job in the offing.
That link between William Buck and PSCI has been a concern to some of WaveMaster’s creditors.
PSCI bought WaveMaster in 1994 from its founder, Trevor Kitcher, for about $2 million.
Mr Kitcher had formed the business to provide ferries for his Boat Torque business but it had grown beyond his needs.
