Printers owed money after the collapse of Western Australian print broker West Print Management (WPM) have not seen a cent of the bad debt owed, with many doubtful they will ever receive reparation.
Brenton Hall, owner of Wangara-based print shop Printstuf says his business has not been paid the $13,000 sum owed since WPM’s liquidation six months ago.
“We haven't been paid a cent and don’t expect any money,” says Hall.
“WPM group were owed from their creditors around $55,000, and from that $25,000 was going to the liquidators Pitcher Partners and the remaining money was going to the staff for superannuation. So nothing left in the pot for anyone else.”
WPM’s creditors list catalogues some 34 printers around Western Australia, with debts topping $166,000 owed to companies including high profile printers CMYKhub, Kalamazoo and Advance Press.
The print broker was owned by director Neil Clark for 15 years before falling into liquidation in December last year. ProPrint reported at the time Clark had blamed an ‘extreme and fast downturn in our government and mining clients spend’ for WPM’s failure.
However several creditors contacted ProPrint claiming Clark continued to take on big clients whilst debts piled up, and say he told a ‘sob story’ about WPM’s forced closure.
WPM's last creditors meeting took place in December, with little to no contact made with its group of 88 creditors since then.
A number of ProPrint readers then defended the print broker trade following the news WPM had burnt its clients.
Geoff Bennet from C Results Print Management says, “Not every print manager is the same as this. I pay my bills on time every month and resent that all print brokers and managers have been tarred with the same brush.”
“If you ask any of the printers I deal with they would tell you that I am on time. I have done this for the past 15 years as well.”
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