Former LWR staff receive part-payment

20 July 2009

PRESS RELEASE

Former Lane Walker Rudkin staff receive further part-payment on outstanding entitlements

The receivers of the Lane Walker Rudkin group of companies (“LWR”) have made a second distribution to staff made redundant, in respect of holiday pay and redundancy entitlements accrued up to the point at which the companies were placed into receivership. The payments, over recent days, bring total distributions to approximately 55 cents per dollar of the total employee preferential entitlements.

The first round of payments, in the form of scheduled wages, was made at the time the receivers were appointed in late April 2009. These payments were equivalent to 10 cents per dollar of entitlements.

The receivers, Stephen Tubbs and Brian Mayo-Smith, said the latest payments had been made at the earliest opportunity based on accumulation of cash from day-to-day trading. At the time the redundancies were made, LWR did not have cash reserves available to meet any significant proportion of the outstanding entitlements.

“Today’s payments reflect a strong focus on addressing this situation as quickly as possible,” Mr Tubbs and Mr Mayo-Smith said today. “We recognise that the impact of the receivership has been very hard for the staff made redundant, and we can only thank them for the patience they have shown in these circumstances. We would also like to recognise the efforts of the retained staff of the group, who have worked extremely hard in a difficult situation to produce the cash required to make the payments achieved to date.”

Mr Tubbs and Mr Mayo-Smith said further payments would be made as soon as the cash position of the group allowed them.

Under the relevant legislation, employees’ preferential entitlements comprise arrears of wages, holiday pay and redundancy entitlements up to a gross limit of $16,420 per employee. Any entitlements in excess of the limit comprise unsecured claims against the group.

Mr Tubbs and Mr Mayo-Smith said the payments in recent days had been made to former employees who had verified details calculated and communicated to them by the company. As some former employees had not yet done so and payments were not possible without verification, some amounts were as yet unpaid. Former employees who had not yet confirmed the relevant amounts were urged to do so as soon as possible to allow the payments to be made.

ENDS

© Scoop Media