Desperate Gunns contractors say even if they recover hundreds of thousands of dollars owed to them, they have no future in Tasmania’s forestry industry.
Around 200 creditors have attended a first meeting with the collapsed timber company’s administrator PPB Advisory in Gunns’ home town of Launceston.
They’ve been told there’ll be no answers to their questions for weeks at the earliest as PPB investigates how the company ended up in administration and receivership and how debts might be recovered.
Forestry contractor Laurence Fielding said the $200,000 he is owed won’t go far in servicing a $2 million debt.
“That’s already gone in fixed costs and we’ve got no likelihood of work in the future,” he told reporters outside the meeting.
“If we get the money we’re owed it will probably cover us for the two months that have just been and we’re still running up debt on machinery.”
Another contractor, Ross Woodhouse, said his workforce had shrunk from 17 to one and creditors had cut off his fuel supplies.
“I’ve been doing this 40-odd years and then you turn around and get a kick in the guts like this,” he said.
“I’m supposed to be retiring, now I don’t have jack-s**t to retire on.”
Both say their move into plantation timber has been disastrous because the Gunns pulp mill they were meant to supply is all but dead and the move has left them ineligible for a government bail-out.
They were left deeply unsatisfied by Wednesday’s meeting, which PPB’s Daniel Bryant described as an “information session”.
It included a presentation from Gunns’ most recent chief executive Greg L’Estrange, who told creditors the company was close to moving forward before it entered voluntary administration late last month.
Mr Bryant said receivers KordaMentha, acting for the banks, held the key to whether unsecured creditors owed around $50 million would ever see their money.
“Ultimately how they deal with the assets will determine what sort of future the company can have and whether it goes into a deed of company arrangement or liquidation,” Mr Bryant said.
He said there had been interest from potential buyers of the company’s assets.
“It’s fairly preliminary,” he said. “It’s a very complex structure.
“That will take some time.”
It’s time some creditors may not have.
“We won’t be here,” Mr Fielding said.
“We can’t wait.”
