Barramundi company in liquidation owing $73m

Marine Produce Australia has been placed into liquidation owing $73 million to unsecured creditors after its asset-rich subsidiaries were sold to Tassal Group last month.

The overarching barramundi farm operator’s creditors have moved to voluntarily wind up the company in liquidation, after being in administration since May.

Marine Produce Australia’s subsidiaries, MPA Fish and MPA Marketing, which held majority of the group’s assets and employees were sold to Tassal Group through a deed of company arrangement last month.

The main asset is an operational and licensed barramundi farm on Turtle Island, in the remote Cone Bay in the state’s Kimberley region.

The creditors moved to wind up the overarching company which owes $73.5 million to its unsecured creditors.

Of that amount, Marine Produce Australia owes $37 million to Barramundi Group, which is the head company's owner and main unsecured creditor. 

Marine Produce Australia was an unlisted company before being acquired by Singapore-based Barramundi Asia, part of Barramundi Group, in an $18.5 million deal in 2018.

In McGrathNicol’s Robert Kirman and Robert Brauer's administrators report to creditors, Marine Produce Australia was a pre-profit operation and had been "historically reliant" on funding from BGL to support operations. 

The group has also incurred an average net loss of $7.3 million across each financial year, and has been loss making since inception, according to the report.

In a judgment delivered in June, the Supreme Court of Western Australia found the MPA group of companies owe about $10.4 million to its key secured creditor the National Australia Bank.

The judgment revealed MPA would borrow funds from Tassal Operations, being Tassal Group, to continue operating at the time.