Failed agency McCorkell no longer has one of its major clients, SAP Australia.
SAP, a client since 2014, told AdNews: “From February 2023, existing Asia Pacific agency partner Webhelp is supporting SAP Australia and New Zealand on telemarketing requirements.”
McCorkell, via a call centre, ran SAP Australia’s inside sales. The other big client is Lexus.
Insiders say the agency has placed several staff, who had worked on the SAP business, on annual leave.
The North Sydney advertising agency, founded in 1992, went into liquidation just before Christmas, putting 18 staff out of work without pay, and leaving a long list of trade creditors.
The business itself was "sold" to a new company operating with a similar name, McCorkell Group. The debts were left in the old company.
The director of both is agency founder Scott Keith McCorkell.
Disaffected creditors have called a meeting for next week to try to dislodge the liquidator, Liam Bailey of insolvency firm O'Brien Palmer, who was appointed shortly after the “sale” of the agency, and replace him with another insolvency expert.
The price paid, $29,129.61, how this number was determined, the movement of assets to a new company and staff left without pay are the issues behind the move to replace the liquidator.
According to documents lodged with ASIC, Bailey, before he was appointed liquidator, introduced a valuer, Andrew Whittingham of Groves & Partners, to Scott Keith McCorkell to establish a price for the agency.
Bailey, in his latest report to creditors, says the sale has caused “significant consternation” among former employees of the company.
However, he says the transaction is one based on an independent valuation.
Bailey argues that had the transaction not occurred, then it was likely that the business would have ceased to trade, causing a significant reduction in the value of assets.
And another 41 employees would have lost their jobs.
Bailey: “The sale of business agreement was not the cause of the company’s inability to pay out owed employee entitlements upon my appointment. Rather, this was a function of the poor financial position in which the company found itself.”
Bailey is also investigating whether or not the company had been trading while insolvent, which would mean Scott Keith
McCorkell, CEO founder and sole director, could be liable for debts.
The liquidator has sent a confidential report to corporate regulator ASIC.
Bailey says the "the company was likely to have been experiencing solvency issues from at least 30 June 2019".
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