Independent agency Zoo Group formally closed its Canberra office last week and now it’s been revealed its Sydney office entered into liquidation in February.
News of the liquidation, which was shared to AdNews via various anonymous sources, counteracts claims from Zoo Group founder Pawl Cubbin, who only a week ago told AdNews he was turning his focus to the “successful” Singapore and Sydney offices.
The Melbourne office also entered into liquidation in November 2017, which again went against what Cubbin told AdNews last year.
When asked about the potential closure of the Melbourne office in August 2017, he said it was “firing” and Zoo had a “huge opportunity there”.
He explains he did have big plans for the Melbourne office and BWM former managing director Mark Watkin had agreed to lead the team following the departure of managing director Matt Rose.
When Watkin fell through and joined a bike sharing startup Cubbin says he decided to cut his losses and “immediately” liquidate the business.
Likewise, the Sydney office was left without leadership following a mass exodus that saw managing director Will Reynolds exit in August.
Cubbin describes himself as an “honest guy” and a “straight shooter”. He defends the inaccuracies in his stories by adding he “prefers to focus on the future than the past”.
“We’re not hiding anything. I unashamedly put Melbourne and Sydney into administration because it was the right thing to do,” Cubbin says.
“I’ve done some good things and things that haven’t gone well, but I’m not going to disappear from the industry.”
While ex-employees have contacted AdNews saying they are owed money, Cubbin says neither Sydney, Melbourne nor Canberra had a lot of debt.
As for the potential of reopening the Sydney office, Cubbin says he isn’t going to “pull a Phoenix” and register a new company to rebirth the failed company, but Singapore has clients that will need to be serviced from Sydney in the future.
“A Phoenix is not what I want to do. The only reason I would do that is to service this potential client from Singapore that needs a Sydney base and team,” he says.
Cubbin says the Singapore office “saved his ass” and has 12-14 staff currently on the ground working across several clients – none which he would list to AdNews.
“We struggled in Singapore for two years. We started with nothing and we didn’t get a lot of work but the last three months, we’ve really hit it.”
Cubbin told AdNews last week his business has been put under increasing pressure from incoming consultancies and shrinking client budgets.
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