Pleiades gave me a heads up about this interesting story:
Phoenixes and vampires both have the habit of rising from the dead – and the Swish Group is now back on the ASX having previously collapsed owing crew in Australia and the US a great deal of money. Some, but not all, of the directors have changed. Carey Peter Stynes continues, and Marcus Georgiades now sports the title of Chief Executive Officer.
In a series of complicated deals executed over November and December, the creditors (who were owed millions ) will received a minimum of $550,000 to be split between them.
Another company, Planet Wwhich acquired the assets of Swish for $450,000 while it was in voluntary administration, will be bought by Swish for $1.2 million in newly-issued shares in a manouevre known as a reverse takeover. An additional $300,000 will be raised in issued shares.
I know some people that got ripped off by Swish Group. There's a crew out in Philadelphia that shot a Bollywood film that never got paid. There are companies and crews in Sydney that never got paid for work they did in January 2008. Even the City of Sydney was put out by the way they pushed their agenda through without paying for anything.
That $550,000 is such a tiny fraction of what they owe it's not funny. I don't see how a bunch of directors can run up an enormous tab, appoint their own liquidators, run some dodgy deals, pay 2c in the dollar or so and end up being able to keep their shirts - houses even! - and get their company back without being encumbered by debt. How can ASIC allow this?
If this is the way business is done in Australia, I tend to think there's no such thing as a just law that serves us all - there's only the law to protect the privileged and to punish the weak and disenfranchised. The kind of corporate laws that allow this kind of shenanigans are not worth the paper they're written on.
I'm really appalled by this outcome.
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