Administrators are urgently seeking bids for the Australian Fashion labels assets, after a sale for the entire business was unsuccessful, administrator Brett Lord has revealed to Ragtrader.
Duff & Phelps administrators have set the deadline for final bids for Australian Fashion Labels' IP, stock, trademarks and other assets for this evening.
The business, which entered administration on Wednesday evening last week, owes approximately $11 million between three secured creditors and approximately $1 million to employees including redundancies.
The news comes after the business was officially closed on Monday and all 57 employees were made redundant.
"When were appointed there was basically no money in the bank at all," Lord told Ragtrader.
"People had been paid their wages up until the end of last week but there was no money to pay wages or rent or anything else going forward.
"So we tried to get a deal done by Friday [last week] that would allow for a sale of the business as a going concern.
"That didn't work so we extended that until Sunday night. We worked over the weekend but couldn't get that to a position that worked either.
"So then unfortunately on Monday we had to officially close the business and make everyone redundant.
"Since then we've been working with a couple of potential buyers for the assets - the stock, the intellectual property, the trademarks and everything else - so that they might be able to put it back together in some way shape or form but in a new company with no obligations around any of the existing employees," he said.
Lord added that the business had tried to restructure but had been unsuccessful.
"Originally [when we came in] it was, 'we need to restructure' and they had a couple of goes at that with a potential investor but that ultimately didn't get to where it needed to be," he said.
The first creditors meeting took place today at 11am, with approximately 20 creditors including employees in the room.
Australian Fashion Labels is an Adelaide-based business that operates brands Cameo Collective, Finders Keepers, Keepsake The Label and The Fifth Label.
It has over 1,700 stockists and employs over 100 people worldwide.
The next creditors meeting is scheduled to go ahead in approximately three weeks.