The print management firm went into voluntary administration with McGrath Nicol on 31 May with $7m owed to unsecured creditors and a $10m secured debt to its bank, NAB, according to the report to creditors

ProPrint spoke to a number of Moore’s suppliers following the creditors meeting in Sydney last Tuesday (5 July). Some said they had seen bumper orders in the lead-up to its failure.

Sydney-based Cunneen Signs supplied signage work to Moore for major client Tabcorp, which the print manager lost to Blue Star in late January 2011.

Managing director David Cunneen said: “I am not proud of the fact we have lost a couple of hundred thousand dollars in this deal. We tend to run our business fairly tight but this one has slipped through the net.

“The amount wasn’t overdue as such, it was just hitting the due date when they went into voluntary administration.”

One of the biggest creditors is Queensland-based Kingswood Press, which is owed $356,000.

Managing director Phil Moody told ProPrint that Moore had a $200,000 credit limit with his company, which the print manager had maxed out.

However, Moody claimed that on 27 May, Kingswood’s financial controller was convinced to extend the terms by another $156,000, with verbal guarantees the money would be paid back by 2 or 3 June. Instead, Moore called in the administrators.

“The whole thing is so wrong. It is just a scam,” said Moody.

“It has turned what would have been a good year into a very ordinary year.”

Both these creditors said they expected to survive the hit, but ProPrint has been told many other smaller suppliers are now at risk of failure.

McGrath Nicol has not produced an itemised list of debts. The firm’s Shaun Fraser said: “Typically that information is in a director’s report of affairs and I have not received anything from the directors.

“My understanding is that most of the time the directors have not been in the country. We have written to them but not heard back,” he added.

The directors did not attend the creditors’ meeting. The most senior Moore figure at the meeting was Ralph Stonell, who had been appointed as chief executive in February 2011.

Stonell’s career history includes a stint as finance director of Lochlile Corp, the parent company of The Printing Department, which went into voluntary administration with McGrath Nicol in February 2010.

Stonell told ProPrint: “I was employed to do a job [at Moore] to restructure the business and turn it into a profitable organisation. I am sorry that this situation had to eventuate…  it was never our intention for this to happen.”

At the meeting, the decision was taken to adjourn until 1 September so the administrators could conduct further investigations.

One point of interest concerns a letter from Moore company secretary John Lee, dated 17 May, that was posted on the ASX on 23 May to say the company expected its “financial position will improve”.

But according to the report to creditors, Moore directors first met with McGrath Nicol on 10 May so the insolvency firm could “explain relevant issues in respect of pre-appointment advice”.

Stonell said this chain of events was not unusual. “There were options on the table at that point of time and one of them was we could go insolvent but there were other options moving in other directions.”

McGrath Nicol’s Fraser would not comment on any clash between the fact that Moore’s company secretary had made assurances to the ASX just days after directors and management met with the insolvency firm, other than to call it “an interesting issue”.

“It is one that needs to be looked at closely and it would be a liquidator’s role to investigate that.”

Another senior Moore executive at Tuesday’s meeting was former chief operating officer Alex McLaren.

He told ProPrint that although the company had been “subject to poor strategic leadership” for some time, it still came as an “absolute shock” when the directors called in administrators.

The focus now for many creditors is the apparent existence of directors liability insurance, which some claimed could be worth $20m.

McGrath Nicol’s Fraser said: “We haven’t been able to track down a copy of the policy, and we don’t know is one exists or if it has been paid.”

But he explained that if there were a valid policy, “you would need to prosecute the director and have a finding by the court that the director had breached their duty then make claim under the policy.

“It is tough and expensive process. As I said to the creditors, the challenge with these sorts of issues is weighing up the costs versus the benefits to purse these claims,” said Fraser.

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