A LISTED property management company that was at the heart of a number of corporate controversies early last year is no more.
Aliquot Asset Management has slipped quietly from the Australian Stock Exchange lists and become reborn as Revenir Limited.
WA Business News has been unable to ascertain exactly what business Revenir will be pursuing.
One option for Revenir is understood to be to pursue opportunities open to it through its real estate management software.
The change of name was due to a deal Aliquot did with Key2, another company involved in the property management industry, to buy its subsidiary Aliquot Property Management.
Key2 paid Aliquot a $750,000 down payment on December 5 with the remainder of the $1,854,875 to be paid six months later.
However, Key2 chairman Ananda Kathiravelu told WA Business News that the final payout would be dependent on the number of rent rolls that remained.
In property management the viability of the business depends on the number of rent rolls, also known as management authorities, that a company holds.
Aliquot Property Management held about 865 management authorities and its then owners felt that the critical mass to make the business viable was 1,400.
However, experts felt that it did not have sufficient cash to attain that level.
For its part, Key2, with the Aliquot Property Management management authorities, holds about 2,350 spread across the residential, commercial and strata property sectors.
Mr Kathiravelu said that number of authorities took Key2 to the critical mass it required to become viable.
In early 2003 Aliquot came under fire from the Australian Shareholders Association and one of its major shareholders Equitylink eLink due to the amount of fees being taken from Aliquot by directors Peter Huston and Michael Perrott and companies associated with them.
Mr Huston and Mr Perrott are understood to still be directors of Revenir, although Mr Rigoll has left.
In the 2001-02 financial year Mr Perrott, Mr Huston, Mr Rigoll and companies Troika Management and Commerce Australia – then linked to Mr Perrott and Mr Huston – had taken $991,251 in fees from Aliquot.
According to its annual report for that year Aliquot had made a $1.4 million loss.
When Mr Perrott and Mr Huston took control of Aliquot – it had been known as Aerodata and counted small cap mining player Mark Caruso on its board – it had about $5.8 million in the bank.
At the time of its 2003 AGM the company had only $1.75 million and those cash deposits are understood to have been eroded further.
At an extraordinary general meeting early last year the ASA attempted to have some of its members put onto Aliquot’s board.
That bid was stalled by a peace deal between Equitilink chairman Paul Crowther and Aliquot’s directors to have himself and his fellow directors Bruce Burrell and Andrew Brown put onto the board.
Equitilink sold its 19 per cent stake of Aliquot in October.
Mr Crowther told WA Business News that he sold the Aliquot shares to Mr Perrott.
Neither Mr Perrott, Mr Huston or Revenir company secretary Niels Kroyer could be contacted for comment.