Melbourne digital printer Printcentre has shut down operations and left its employees in the dark after receivers entered the business on Monday morning.
Disgruntled employees tell ProPrint Printcentre owner Darren Soppi had been on stress leave for some time before semi-retired co-owner John Doyle returned to patch up a ‘failing’ company.
Last Friday the owners were seen moving out possessions before the business locked its doors on Monday. Soppi and Doyle have not contacted their employees since receivers from Grant Thornton entered the building earlier this week – leaving its twenty-strong workforce mystified.
According to a former employee, staff arrived at the Melbourne premises on Monday morning to find desks cleared out and the codes to all accounts changed, leaving no funds to pay staff their last wages.
ProPrint also understands super has not been paid to employees for some time – with some long-term employees allegedly owed a backlog of entitlements.
Creditors of the Print Centre have also been contacting the business, with a number of suppliers including Victorian paper merchant Rojo Pacific and Fuji Xerox – who leased the printer its presses – allegedly owed hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“Some of the guys have been there for over ten years and there has been no contact whatsoever to us. There’s no loyalty from the owners,” says one former employee.
“When receivers came in they told us ‘this is the most unorthodox thing we have ever seen’, it all seems orchestrated.”
ProPrint has not yet been able to reach owners Doyle or Soppi for comment.
Printcentre moved into its Melbourne facility in March last year after pulling majority of its production out of Sydney.
The move resulted in the redundancy of six staff members – five of which were former employees of failed wide format operation TPS Venture.
It remains unknown if Printcentre has collapsed into liquidation.
More to come.
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