PPB’s Peter Block, whose firm took over Pettaras after its fall into receivership on 23 March, confirmed to ProPrint that the deal has fallen through after weeks of negotiations.
“At this stage, the receivers and managers have been unable to conclude a sale agreement with the shortlisted party, which is extremely disappointing,” he said.
“As a result of that, and the inability to conclude a sale with any other shortlisted parties over the last few days, we’ve moved into a wind-down of the business, which includes the redundancy of certain staff.”
Block added that the wind-down is expected to take “several weeks”. In the meantime, the firm will “look to other strategies for the maximisation of the value of assets”.
The “shortlisted company” was understood to be Print National, based on the NSW Central Coast and part of the James Australia Group.
General manager Don Langdon told ProPrint that the deal fell through after an agreement could not be reached with the landlord.
“The status is that we want to buy. We’ve been itching to buy for weeks,” he said.
“The landlord won’t give us a lease, or rather won’t extend the lease to us, even though we’re prepared to meet the same terms or even better terms than Steve Pettaras.”
PPB would not comment on why the deal fell through.
Sydney-based STI Lilyfield was also understood to have made a play for Pettaras, though the company would not confirm whether it was one of the shortlisted parties to have been approached over the past few days.
Langdon said his company was still holding out hope that a deal may be reached, and that the company may try to acquire Pettaras “a different way”.
“We’ve been wanting to do the deal for three weeks. Every day we’ve wanted to do a deal,” he said.
“It’s pretty sad. A lot of people are going to lose their jobs.”
Pettaras Press entered administration on 19 March, followed by receivership with PPB on 23 March.
As recently as last month, PPB had said it was close to a sale for the company, which employs around 80 staff and operates a mix of sheetfed and digital equipment.
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