Quickflix has entered voluntary administration after it failed to reach an agreement to restructure shares that are owned by rival Stan.
This follows a recent announcement that Quickflix is laying off 15% of its staff and shutting down headquarters in Sydney and an office in Auckland.
Australia's first SVOD player has been trying to negotiate a restructure of redeemable preference shares (RPS) owned by Nine/Fairfax player Stan. This is a major stumbling block for Quickflix in finding an investor to inject urgently needed capital.
In 2014, Stan bought 83 million redeemable preferece shares in Quickflix from HBO, which is a large enough slice to be a blocking stake.
According to a Quickflix statement lodged with the ASX, Stan says it will only consider restructuring the RPS if Quickflix pays Stan $4 million in cash, or it pays $1.25 million in cash and transfers all Quickflix streaming customers (subscriptional and transcational).
Quickflix says neither option is viable because it doesn't have the funds to make the payment or is able to raise them.
Recently, Quickflix restructured its business to release $7.5 million in obligations with content providers as well as implement cost savings of %5 million per annum.
Quickflix says the administrators, Ferrier Hodgson, will operate Quickflix Australia "business as usual", while its New Zealand subsidiary remains unaffected.
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