MELBOURNE: Stalwart Australian footwear business Figgins Holdings has collapsed into voluntary liquidation, with debts in excess of $17 million.
Documents lodged with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) reveal Figgins Holdings shareholders passed a resolution on February 18, 2010 to place the company into liquidation. The creditors’s voluntary winding up comes 12 months after Figgins implemented a raft of restructures designed to offset increasing costs and a drop in consumer spending.
Documents lodged with ASIC reveal $12.7 million is owed by Figgins Holdings to unsecured creditors including a number of Australian shoe importers and wholesalers. Cube Footwear is among those hardest hit, with Figgins owing in excess of $576,000 to the Melbourne company.
Other unsecured creditors include Fujian Footwear (owed $166,061), Cadet Shoes ($158,606), Franco Burrone ($108,061), Shoes Online Enterprises ($74,289), Sunsports Footwear ($47,085) and SSL Australia, suppliers of Scholl and Orthaheel ($50,082).
ASIC documents reveal secured creditors ANZ Bank, Bianco Imports and Sarah and Jeffrey Figgins are owed more than $3.5 million. The first creditors meeting was scheduled for March 4, 2010.
Unsecured creditor Coastline Agency supplied product to Figgins’s The Shoe Factory stores. Coastline Agency general manager Chris Harris said he first became aware of Figgins’s struggles in early 2009 when it closed its 43 Shoobiz stores and rebranded Evelyn Miles boutiques under the Midas name.
“The restructuring obviously didn’t go far enough,” Harris said. He added that Figgins’s collapse was “disappointing” for Australian wholesalers.
“It means there’s one less retailer out there in the market place to sell to and that will buy volume,” he said.
Harris did not expect Coastline Agency would recover the funds it is owed and referenced the challenges the shoe industry has experienced since the onset of economic turbulence in 2008.
“We all knew there would be a couple of players that would be weeded out,” he said. “It’s still very, very tough out there.”
Another unsecured creditor who did not wish to be named said he believed Figgins had not matched the performance of its competitors in recent years, revealing he had ceased trading with Figgins at the end of 2009.
“We sent in the debt collectors six months ago,” he said.
Figgins Holdings’s liquidation is being managed by GS Andrews and Associates. The shoe business was founded in 1965 by Don Figgins and its brands included Mollini, Midas, Scooter and Emporio.
Erin O’Loughlin