The former chairman of troubled listed vending-machine operator VTL still believes more value can be wrung out of the firm's assets despite the company's decision to call in the receivers.
Gary Stevens and fellow directors Mervyn Doolan, Kenneth Moses and Donald Young announced their resignations yesterday with theappointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers receiver Colin McCloy.
McCloy and colleague John Waller are already the receivers for VTL subsidiary Nathans Finance, which collapsed in August last year owing 7000 debenture investors $171 million.
Stevens said the directors had been working through the sale of VTL's non-core assets but believed the time was right to hand the business over to a receiver. "The time was right for us to resign, the time was right to appoint Colin McCloy."
The firm sold its 24seven California and Texas operations in April and its Australasian operations in May.
Stevens said the directors continued to believe Remote Technology Systems LLC, Shop24 and the vending franchise programme had value and hoped the restructuring would continue for the stakeholders' benefit.
He said the firm had been looking for strategic partners to work with but had yet to clinch a deal with anyone. But he said talks were still in progress.
"We are still working through it."
McCloy said he had yet to be officially appointed but he understood the remaining assets would be sold down in an orderly manner. He would also write to debenture holders in Nathans Finance in the next few days to "let them know the implications".
In the June update, McCloy and Waller said they were investigating a reported loss of $133 million by VTL for the 14 months to August 31, 2007.
"The magnitude of the loss is of serious concern and is the subject of a thorough investigation by the receivers of Nathans.
Already a number of matters have come to our attention which are being investigated and which will be referred to the appropriate Government authorities if necessary," they told investors.
As of June the receivers had managed to realise $8 million from the sale of the assets, or 4.7 per cent of $171 million owed to investors, but were still working to resolve issues with outstanding creditors.
