Creditors report reveals Camatic Seating owes $29 million

Melbourne-based seating supplier Camatic Pty Ltd has been revealed to have accrued debts of $29 million prior to its entering voluntary administration in March.

The 60-year-old company, which traded as Camatic Seating, designed, manufactured and installed seating in stadiums, arenas, cinemas, theatres, educational institutions and mass transit location around the world.

As exclusively revealed by Australasian Leisure Management in mid-April, the Wantirna South-based company, which employed more than 70 staff, entered voluntary administration as of 4th April with Jason Stone and Glenn Franklin from insolvency firm PFK appointed to oversee it.

Australasian Leisure Management is aware that many of these staff have been terminated or stood down by the administrators as wages were unable to be paid.

News Limited has reported that a leaked letter showed a request from administrators for employees to agree to be stood down without pay from 10th April to 3th May.

It advised “the reason for the stand down is that the majority of the company’s operations have been put on hold for the time being resulting in stoppage of work where certain employees (including yourself) can no longer be usefully employed.”

In addition, the administrator’s report has noted that the company had accrued debts worth $29.4 million.

The biggest creditor is HSBC, which is owed $11.2 million from loans, a mortgage, credit card and bank overdraft while outstanding debt for unsecured creditors totalled $14.9 million including trades.

The Australian Taxation Office has lodged a debt notice worth almost $250,000, while the State Revenue Office of Victoria notified administrators they are owed $331,000.

Employees are owed approximately $3.6 million including unpaid wages, superannuation, annual leave, long service leave and redundancy pay.

A number of parties had also laid claims to stock within the manufacturing plant worth between $748 and $114,000 with the likes of 27 steel pallets, plastic beads, a printer, fibreboard and a chemical outlined in the report.

Franklin said the company’s failure was a result of difficult trading during pandemic lockdowns, especially in relation to freight as a global exporter, driving a declining financial position.

He added the company was further stretched by opening a manufacturing plant in Malaysia during the Covid-19 crisis period, without the required opportunity for management to travel and supervise the set up.

Apart from the Victorian manufacturing site, it also operated Camatic US which was responsible for projects in the region and Camatic Malaysia.

The business has been advertised for sale with two offers received, the administrators report revealed, although negotiations were ongoing.

Franklin has also recommended the company be placed into liquidation.

Camatic had an extensive order book having supplied seats for major venues including Melbourne and Olympic Parks over two decades, stadia for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia and a range of major stadia in the USA such as Mercedes-Benz Stadium - home of the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons, SoFi Stadium - home of the Los Angeles Rams and Chargers, and Allegiant Stadium - home of the Las Vegas Raiders and the venue for the NRL’s 2024 season opening double header.

Significant recent installations in Australia included 5,000 of its Quantum seats at Melbourne’s Kia Arena and 42,000 Axiom seats at Sydney’s Allianz Stadium.

Images: Camatic installation at Russia's Kazan Arena (top) and Camatic Managing Director, Kirk Edwards (left) and television personality and SportNXT Chair, Eddie McGuire launch Camatic's recycled plastic stadium seat at the 2023 SportNXT sport summit (below).