Clear Skies Corporation Pty Ltd, which trades as Skope Group Services Manufacturing, Scream Visual Wholesale Manufacturing Division and FM Engineering & Wholesale Sign Manufacturing, is in administration with insolvency firm PKF handling its affairs (Mr Simon Thorn).
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| Clear Skies Corp's/FM Engineering & Wholesale Sign Manufacturing registered office at Campbelltown NSW |
A first creditors meeting was held on August 2nd with administrator Simon Thorn of PKF presenting an initial creditors list (excluding employee entitlements) amounting to $1,042,341 which he told wideformatonline.com “will probably go up as we gain more details, as they often do.”
The ATO is listed as the largest single creditor at $427,000. Industry suppliers have been hard hit, with sister companies Amari Visual, Graphic Art Mart and Chief Media exposed to a total of $134,236. HVG is exposed to a debt of $30,135 while Mulford Plastics is there for $18,259. LED sign illumination specialists Tec-Know (now known as Bounce LED) is down for $17,076.
Several aluminium sheet suppliers are listed as creditors including Fairview Architectural with a debt of $76,667. Fairview is also one of the parties (with HVG) in a class action claim funded by IMF Bentham over the installation of combustible cladding on apartment buildings, see story here:
ASIC lists only one director of Clear Skies Corp and that is Robert Price, who is also listed as General Manager of Comm-Klad, a company listed as a creditor with a debt of $16,495. Comm-Klad is not part of the administration, says Mr Thorn, and leases factory space owned by Clear Skies/Skope in Campbelltown, NSW. FM Engineering & Wholesale Sign Manufacturing, which is one of the three Clear Skies divisions in administration, shares the same address as Comm-Klad.
However, searches for Comm-Klad return to the Skope Group Services website on which it is stated:
“All the cladding is manufactured and assembled in a controlled environment in our manufacturing facility at Campbelltown, ensuring quality and safety standards are met.”
Mr Price is listed as both General Manager of Comm-Klad and sole director of Clear Skies Corp Pty Ltd. Comm-Klad's corporate video features the Skope Group Services red logo. It should be noted that Skope Group Pty Ltd, a company of high reputation established for 45 years, has used Clear Skies Corp, trading as Skope Group Services Manufacturing and Scream Visaual Wholesale Manufacturing, but is NOT connected commercially with Clear Skies.
The confusion was echoed by a clearly distressed spokesperson who did not want to be named when wideformatonline.com contacted the Skope Group Castle Hill office, claiming Clear Skies Corp was 'nothing to do with us' and a 'separate company.' When asked about the similar names Skope Group Services Manufacturing and Scream Visual Wholesale Division, she said 'we have used their services from time-to-time' and 'the names are similar but the companies and ACNs are different, adding 'over the years they have provided us with some goods but that’s as far as the relationship goes' and emphatically stating 'Clear Skies Corp is nothing to do with us, nothing to do with me as a director, nothing to do with our (Skope Group) ABNs.'
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Rob Price. Listed as sole director of Clear Skies Corp, in admin. |
DOCA likely
PKF’s Simon Thorn told wideformatonline.com: “We are still gathering details for the statutory report and will announce a second creditors meeting at which a Deed of Company Arrangement will be voted on. Meanwhile it’s business as usual for the companies involved."
It should be made clearer that Skope Group Services Manufacturing is a business trading name under Clear Skies Corp Pty Ltd - in administration, sole director Robert Dean Price. Skope Group Pty Ltd is a respected and long-established company headquartered in Castle Hill that did business with Clear Skies Corp, trading as Skope Group Services Manufacturing but is not, apparently, otherwise connected.
Further details will be made available as they come to hand.
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