Salt Lake in receivership, owes $170m

Receivers have been appointed to Salt Lake Potash after the embattled business was unable to repay creditors and raise further funds needed to continue with commissioning its Lake Way project in the Goldfields.

Receivers from KordaMentha were appointed to Salt Lake this afternoon, with KPMG as administrators.

In a statement, KordaMentha said the potash aspirant owed about $US127 million ($A170 million) to its secured creditors, which included Commonwealth Bank of Australia and the federal government’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation.

It’s also understood that Salt Lake needed further funding to continue with commissioning its Lake Way processing plant, located near Wiluna.

Richard Tucker and Craig Shepard of KordaMentha were appointed as receivers and managers of Salt Lake’s entities, while Martin Jones, Tom Birch and Hayden White of KPMG were appointed administrators.

Mr Tucker said the receivers would stabilise operations and assess Salt Lake’s financial position while maintaining 'business as usual'.

KordaMentha is then due to market Salt Lake and its assets for sale or recapitalisation.

“The Lake Way project is largely fully developed and offers an opportunity for a turnkey project in a commodity of the future,” Mr Tucker said in a statement.

“Sulphate of potash [SOP] is attracting significant interest globally as it fits within the ‘green’ investment thesis for a large number of global investors,” Mr Tucker added.

“Given SO4 [Salt Lake] has a world-class potash project in a favourable jurisdiction, we expect significant interest in the sale and recapitalisation process.”

Salt Lake, which is one of a handful of SOP aspirants in Western Australia, has more than 100 employees comprised of mostly fly in, fly out workers.

The Perth-based company is led by chief executive Isak Buitendag (appointed last month) and chairman Ian Middlemas.

Salt Lake suspended its shares from trading on October 7.