Following the financial fallout of the Peats Ridge Festival collapse, the appointed administrators, building and construction firm Worrells, are continuing their investigations of the suspect money trail for the embattled New South Wales music festival and its Direcotr Matt Grant, following early reports that demonstrated creditors were owed nearly $1.2 million in unpaid debts, including $95,000 owed to the New Year’s Event headliners the John Butler Trio.
Worrells was appointed as the new administrators earlier in the month after a meeting of creditors staged a proverbial revolt, removing the original administrator Jirsch Sutherland, “an insolvency practice that had previously represented the Peats Ridge Director on four separate occasions,” stated a notice from the MEAA, the union representing the unpaid artists and crew.
The MEAA were among the first brought a spotlight to Grant’s intention to wind-up the festival, the director claiming he had been “open and transparent” about the festival’s financial woes when he first announced on January 18th that Peats Ridge was unable to cover its costs and would be placed into liquidation, but the unions, artists, and creditors have been scratching their heads over where the profits from the bar and ticket sales have ended up.
“You can do the simple math from the gate and the bar… and the numbers just don’t add up. This is a job now for the liquidators to do a forensic examination,” said Mal Tulloch of the MEAA previously of the vexatious accounting for the festival.Worrells and the Creditors Committee are looking into ticket pre-sales and on-the-door sales, stall sales and commissions, stall holders fess, sponsorship money, rebate and/or grant money.
Now The Music has pointed out that Worrells have released a report investigating into the missing funds with an updated creditors report.
Every aspect of Peats Ridge Festival and its accounts will be inspected, states the updated report, including all revenue from the 2012 event, all funds transferred to Matt Grant and his related parties, as well as transactions made from the Peats Ridge Pty Ltd account following the festival’s completion, as well as identifying a total of 11 companies as being associates with Mr. Grant’s insolvent company.
Liquidators Christopher Darin and Ivor Worrell, whose building and construction company are registered liquidators with experience in bankruptcy and fraud examination, are heading the investigation into Peats Ridge’s assets, in their ongoing search to obtain all of the company’s books and record keeping following its financial collapse.
The liquidators are also working closely with the Creditors Committee, that they helped vote in with their appointment at the start of the month, to help with the investigation. Committee 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 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.
Representatives from Worrell’s also told The Music they will be providing updated information to creditors as it comes to hand, as well as encouraging others who believe they are still owed money by Peats Ridge, to lodge a claim through their website.
Worrells’ Craig Tinkler has also previously noted the forensics accountants are working on brining Matt Grant to court, “we’re probably looking at a public examination of the director and any other parties involved,” said Mr. Tinkler.
Mr. Grant’s issued statement reads that despite “an incredible 2012 Peats Ridge Festival… that the income from ticket sales and other sources fell below that required to meet the costs of the event.” While official attendance figures for the 2012 festival are not currently available, some simple maths reveals that the numbers don’t add up. To meet the $1.2 million figure owed to creditors, a little over 3,500 of the $340 Adult 3-day season pass would need to be sold, yet the original creditors report indicates that Peats Ridge declared only $140,000 of its own money on the books, which equals a little over 400 Adult season pass tickets sold.“There needs to be some sort of examination of why laws in this country allow this to happen, and if there are laws – why are they being broken?” – Mal Tulloch, MEAA
Surely Peats Ridge were expecting more than that if they had risked booking headliners John Butler Trio for $95,000, and those ticket sales figures do not account for the money earned from the bar and other sales that Worrells are currently investigating.
A public examination of Mr. Grant would involve a court summons for a testimony under oath, and though no legal action can be directly taken from that testimony, it does provide strong evidence that can be used for subsequent proceedings.
It’s not even the first time that the Peats Ridge director has been in financial hot waters, 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 former administrators Jirsch Sutherland revealed that Grant had been the director of four companies that had been made insolvent since August 2011.
The current creditors report will also investigate if Mr. Grant was running these companies, and knowingly incurring debt while insolvent, an offence under companies law which would most certainly lead to legal proceedings against the Peats Ridge Director in order to recoup the creditors’ lost money.
The MEAA are keen on aggressively pursuing the money trail, not just in pursuing 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?”
