Unsecure creditors including over 6,000 customers who paid deposits to the failed appliance company Kleenmaid have little chance of getting their money back after a warehouse owner put a lien on over $3M worth of Kleenmaid stock held in their warehouses across Australia says administrators to the failed group.
Aspokesperson for Deloitte, the administrators of the failed appliance maker which went into administration with debts of over $76M, said that warehouse Company DB Schenker has a legitimate right to sell the Kleenmaid stock and recover $2M in rent owed by the appliance maker.
Creditors are expected to be told the bad news at a creditors meeting which is being held tomorrow at 10am at the Chiefly Hotel in Brisbane, Queensland.
Jonathan Sollitt Davies of Deloitte said “The owners of the warehouses where the Kleenmaid stock was being held have a right to the stock and they have indicated to us that they intend to liquidate the stock to recover over $2M in unpaid rent. Because of this the other unsecured creditors have little chance of recovering the money owed to them”.
“The owners of the warehouse are well within their legal rights to do this. The stock is worth around $3.5M and what will be left over will be distributed among other creditors.” he said.
Kleenmaid called in the administrators on the Thursday befoe Easter owing more than $70 million to customers, contractors and trade suppliers. Of that about $27 million was owed to people who had paid for goods but had not received them.
Hundreds of angry customers flooded Kleenmaid stores last weekend demanding their products or money back.
