A major creditor has mounted a last-ditch effort to save high-profile Queensland warehouse retailer, Super Butcher, from financial collapse, Beef Central has reported.
The business, fronted by Andrew McDonald, former owner of the South Burnett meatworks, has been teetering on the brink in recent weeks, understood to be owing almost $6 million to a long list of creditors and the tax department. Most of these are prominent red meat wholesalers.
The largest of the creditors, Auswide, says it is owed more than $1 million, and there are several others owed $800,000 or more. Should the Super Butcher business ultimately go into liquidation, it could well be fatal for several of the smaller, less financially robust creditors caught up in the crisis, stakeholders say.
Creditors are putting together a package to try to stop the business going into bankruptcy. As part of the process, AM No. 1 Pty Ltd, trading as Super Butcher, was put into voluntary administration on Monday, while a purchase agreement was effected. The deal being constructed by Auswide must still be ratified by other stakeholders and the court, and has to stay under administration for ten days before that can happen.
If the Super Butcher business was to ultimately go into liquidation, it would be one of the largest retail/wholesale collapses in Australian history.
