LIQUIDATION seems certain for shipbuilder WaveMaster with administrator Brian McMaster looking to appoint agents to sell the company’s land and a 60 per cent completed ferry it has on its premises.
There is also to be an auction of the shipbuilder’s plant and equipment, probably in the third week of January.
In addition, Mr McMaster has applied to put the next creditor’s meeting off until mid February 2005.
While some former workers have raised concerns they could miss out on the eight weeks’ redundancy pay, they seem likely to recover the eight weeks’ pay they were owed before the shipbuilder went into administration, plus four weeks’ pay in lieu.
Australian Manufacturing Workers Union lawyer Luke Edmonds said he was aware of the staff concerns but could not determine whether those concerns were justified.
Mr McMaster said liquidation appeared to be the only option for the company, which was put into administration on November 4 under debts of about $12.6 million.
“When we took over, there was not one dollar of cash for the administrator,” he said.
Mr McMaster said getting paid seemed to have been a concern for WaveMaster. He said while 60 per cent of the work on a $5 million vessel had been comple-ted, WaveMaster had not recov-ered a single progress payment for that work from the customer.
