As the creditors voted to wind up the print manager, they also moved to drop incumbent administrator McGrath Nicol and appoint insolvency firm Dean Willcocks Shepard as liquidator.

McGrath Nicol partners Shaun Fraser, Anthony McGrath and Shane O’Keefe had originally been appointed as voluntary administrators on 31 May.

The firm, which ceased in its role on 1 September, invoiced for $487,000 for their three months’ work with related companies Moore Australia, Moore Australia (Holdings) and Moore Business Systems. 

Shaun Fraser told ProPrint that fees of that level “wouldn’t be unusual”.

“We took over complete responsibility for trading the business. It takes a lot of effort and there is a lot of risk involved. I have a personal liability for every liability the company takes over,” said Fraser.

“I am comfortable with the fee,” he added.

However, it looks as if creditors were not comfortable with McGrath Nicol, choosing Adam Farnsworth from Dean Willcocks Shepard to act as liquidator.

One creditor speculated the only way they will now see a return is if the matter heads to the courts.

McGrath Nicol obtained a copy of Moore’s Directors and Officers Insurance Policy, against which the creditors could make a claim, but only if it can be proved that the company had been trading insolvently before going into administration, and that the directors had not been “deliberately dishonest or had deliberately committed a fraudulent act”.

According to McGrath Nicol: “The administrators remain of the view that the company was insolvent prior to the appointment of administrators.”

It is expected that investigations will continue into the sale of Moore’s Western Australian operations to Print Media Group in March 2011 for $450,000.

The administrators pointed out that “… there are potential flaws in their valuation methodology and I remain of a view that the sales of business may have been uncommercial”.

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