CPD Group focus on governments, schools ahead of collapse

Governments, including local councils, and schools appear to be the biggest clients of building, construction and maintenance firm CPD Group, which collapsed in May.

Councils from Gosnells to Rockingham and schools such as Carine Senior High School and Ursula Frayne Catholic College have been among the names that the liquidators of CPD Group have successfully collected from as they seek to recover outstanding debts.

Documents lodged with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission by liquidators from Ferrier Hodgson show that, from the period of their appointment on May 11 until mid June, almost $550,000 was collected from a wide variety of CPD Group's debtors, most notably those mentioned above, but also from facilities management players such as Serco and Spotless as well as property managers.

Tenders sites such as Australian Tenders and the state government’s Tenders WA also show CPD Group picked up a host of new contracts in the 14 months before its collapse.

Business News has identified 19 state government contracts awarded in since March 2015, the biggest of which was work worth $2.5 million for the Department of Education on the Coodanup Community Centre’s trade training centre near Mandurah.

Several contracts were worth more than $1 million, although some were much less, the least being around $25,000.

It had also won several regional contracts from the federal government in that period.