Debts to collapsed firm ‘still liable’

Press, 15 January 1982, Page 2

Debts to collapsed firm ‘still liable’

PA Auckland Debts owed to and being collected by Creditmen-Duns. Ltd. are still liable to be paid, according to the assistant to the receiver of the company. Mr Angus Fraser. The company is trying to continue trading while a buyer is sought. Mr Fraser said in Auckland yesterday it was still possible that the company would be sold. A number of interested buyers had held discussions with the receivers in the last week. The company may stop trading at the end of the month if a buyer is not found. The 120 staff throughout New Zealand affected by the company's collapse have been given notice, effective from the end of this month. An Auckland accountant. Mr D. W. Mace, one of two receivers appointed by the National Bank, said yesterday that preliminary investigations had been completed and it was “simply not possible to trade the group out of its difficulties," Mr Fraser said that the creditors of 28 Auckland and five Hamilton companies for which Creditmen-Duns acted as liquidators or receivers would not be affected by the collapse. Separate bank accounts had been opened for those companies. Legal advice was being sought on Creditmen-Duns own accounts. covering money the company itself was owed and money it had collected for clients/ The receivers said that they would not know until next week the size of the company's debt. The creditors are headed by the National Bank, as the first debenture-holder over the group's holding company, Commercial Services. Creditmen-Duns is the only trading subsidiary of the eight subsidiary members in the group.