Creditors vote to wind up Kingman

The signwriting company behind major signage jobs in Western Australia, including Optus Stadium, has been placed in liquidation, a little over three years after it was sold by its founders.

Creditors voted to place Kingman Signs & Graphics, previously Kingman Visual, in liquidation at a meeting this week at the recommendation of administrators KordaMentha.

The move comes after a deal was struck by KordaMentha administrators John Bumbak and Richard Tucker to sell the company’s assets for $192,500 last week.

A report published ahead of the wind-up vote revealed Vernon and Dianne Kingman, who sold the business late in 2020, are unlikely to recoup the $745,000 they are owed as unsecured creditors of the company.

Administrator documents also reveal Norman Asch, the company’s director was chief executive before leaving in October, and director Todd Grover, will not be repaid for loans they put into the business in the latter part of last year.

Mr Asch contributed $150,000 before leaving, while Mr Grover loaned the business $430,000 over three months through to December.

Kingman is understood to have employed more than 60 people when administrators were called in on January 29.

Management attributed the business’s failure to higher-than-anticipated costs attached to bringing on new offerings, including recent expansions into cladding, digital signage and EV chargers, as well as slower-than-expected revenue generation from new products.

Management also highlighted a downturn in its core signage offering, due to market conditions and after key staff were lost from the business.

Administrator investigations found the business had a large operating cost base and a low conversion of its job pipeline.

The report was also critical of what was considered a lack of timely access to accurate reporting information and an inability to reduce cash outflow while incoming cash declined.

The liquidation represents a significant fall from grace for the company founded by the Kingmans in their garage in the 1980s.

Mr Kingman has been critical on social media of management’s handling of the saga, and recently disputed claims of a signage industry downturn in recent conversation with Business News.

Mr Kingman said his concerns were for the staff laid off as a result of the company’s collapse.