Matt Grant, the director of the embattled Peats Ridge festival, who has been at the centre of the New Year’s festival’s financial collapse as investors continue the search for missing money to pay off debts of nearly $1.2 million to creditors has already drawn suspicion over his book-keeping for the event.
The administrators handling the liquidation of Peats Ridge, building and construction firm Worrells, have already noted their interest in a public examination of Matt Grant in a court summons for a testimony under oath, but now the Festival Director has ruffled feathers by announcing plans to head overseas and creditors want assurances that he isn’t planning to skip town and his unpaid debts, as News Ltd reports.
Grant says he doesn’t plan to leave creditors in the lurch, despite preparing to fly to France, and the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA) – the union representing unpaid artists and crew who were among the first to spotlight Grant’s intention to wind-up the festival without reimbursing costs – has called for assurances that Grant will return from his overseas trip to settle his debts.
“We’re worried this could see the liquidation process stalled to the point that nothing will happen,” said an MEAA spokesman, but Mr. Grant has told press that any suggestion he was intending to skip town was “ridiculous.”“We’re worried this could see the liquidation process stalled to the point that nothing will happen.” – The MEAA
“I’m travelling to France to visit my wife and to work for approximately a month,” said the Peats Ridge director. “The liquidator of Peats Ridge has been aware of this since the first meeting. I have completely assisted and will continue to assist the liquidator. I have supplied all books and records. Any insinuation that I am not returning to Australia is ridiculous.”
Mr. Grant say he has been “open and transparent” about the festival’s financial woes since announcing on January 18th that Peats Ridge was unable to cover its costs and would be placed into liquidation.
It’s not even the first time that the Peats Ridge director has been in financial hot water, this is the second time the festival has entered liquidation after the original company, PERIFE PTY LTD, was wound up in late 2011, facing the ongoing financial fallout from the cancellation of the 2007 Peats Ridge due to extreme weather conditions; while a previous creditors report revealed that Grant had been the director of four companies that had been made insolvent since August 2011.
That report came from former administrators Jirsch Sutherland, who were unseated as the collapsed festival’s administrators in early February after a meeting of creditors staged a proverbial revolt, replacing them with current administrators Worrells after finding that the “insolvency practice [had] previously represented the Peats Ridge Director on four separate occasions,” stated the MEAA. “I’m travelling to France to visit my wife and to work… any insinuation that I am not returning to Australia is ridiculous.” – Matt Grant, Peats Ridge Festival Director
Upon their appointment, Worrells began working closely with the Creditors Committee, whose members include representatives from Butler Brown Touring Company (who are owed $95,579.50 for the John Butler Trio’s headline performance at Peats Ridge), APRA, Sorted Events, Constant Solutions, Billions Australia, Simon George, Top Shelf Productions and musicians including Cass Eager & The Velvet Rope, The Black Seeds, and Claude Hay.
Worrells and the Committee are digging deeper into the festival’s funds and book-keeping, particularly looking into ticket pre-sales and on-the-door sales, stall sales and commissions, stall holders fess, sponsorship money, rebate and/or grant money; profits from the bar will also be scrutinised, with beverage and catering company Sorted Events, who provided the bars onsite, owed a whopping $283,726 according to the creditors’ report.
The MEAA are keen on aggressively pursuing the money trail, not just in obtaining the $750,000 owed for the more than 50 musicians they represent, but also as a point of professional precedence. “There needs to be some sort of examination of why laws in this country allow this to happen,” said the MEAA’s Mal Tulloch, “and if there are laws – why are they being broken?”
But the Alliance is concerned that the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) will not aid in pursuing the festival’s liquidation “with all the vigour creditors would expect,” said the union’s spokesperson.
“It appears that the [ASIC] is not satisfied the matter is of sufficient scale to warrant the exercise of its powers,” the MEAA added. “There is now a grave risk that the claims of hundreds of injured and out-of-pocket individuals and small businesses will be shunted into a dark corner.”
