Business Directory
GrabOne owes more than $16 million to creditors, the first liquidators’ report into the online marketplace’s collapse has revealed.
The business went into liquidation last week, citing “funding constraints”, and ceased trading immediately.
Calibre Partners liquidators have released their first report into Global Marketplace New Zealand Ltd, the company behind GrabOne, with $16.5m owed.
A related part creditor takes up the majority of money owed, with a $9.3m claim.
Fifteen employees who had their contracts terminated have a claim for $365,000, while Inland Revenue is claiming $153,000, alongside future tax liabilities of $2.9m.
At the time of the liquidation, the company had $800,000 in assets, of which $380k were from unredeemed credit and gift cards.
In their report, the liquidators Jackson and Stoneman offered a warning to customers, saying they were unlikely to be paid back refunds owed.
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They said refunds would not be issued during the liquidation, but encouraged customers to file a creditor claim.
Customers with an existing product order or outstanding voucher were being advised to contact the business directly to see if vouchers would be honoured, or orders sent.
Meanwhile, retailers and businesses are being left to make their own decisions around honouring outstanding GrabOne vouchers.
They will not be reimbursed if they so choose to do so, however.
Businesses Stuff has spoken to have said they will honour vouchers, but that the closure of GrabOne will have an impact on them.
Parakai Springs General Manager Dion Tilson said there was potentially around $40,000 of redeemed and unredeemed vouchers that his company has not received payment for.
Tilson told Stuff he was “very frustrated” by what happened after having had a good relationship with GrabOne for over ten years.
“I’m sure we were one of the bigger merchant providers, and we had no indication, or there was no comms to us leading up to this in regards to this sort of action happening.”
Tilson said their focus will now turn to honouring the vouchers their customers have with them, a number he says could be thousands.
“We want to ensure that we honour every customer that has purchased a voucher via the GrabOne site. We want to make sure that they’ve got their experience. So we’ve got to work through all of those.”
“We recognise we won’t be paid for that. It’s a very difficult situation they’ve put us in, and certainly in the economic times we’re in, it’s not nice leading up to our summer trading,” he said.
The liquidators said they will now focus on selling the business and its assets, and attempt to recover any outstanding assets.