Race to save $40m collapsed company

Tribe Breweries, which includes brands such as Stockade Brew, Mornington Peninsula Brewery and Wilde and also makes beer under contract for 15 outside beer groups, went bust in February but has continued to operate with its 110 staff.

The business, which has sites in Marrickville and Goulburn and began in 2018, was set to be sold to its rival craft brewer Young Henrys but it fell through.

Christopher Hill and Joseph Hansell from FTI Consulting were appointed to handle the voluntary administration of the company, including overseeing the day-to-day management of the business.

“This has been a difficult decision, but one that we hope will help put Tribe onto a sustainable footing for the future,” added its chief executive Amarto Basu in February.

“The Board has taken the view that the company’s financial structure and debts cannot support the business at a time of challenging trading conditions.”

FTI Consulting held their first creditors’ meeting on Thursday and set a deadline of March 16 for potential buyers to put in an offer for the craft brewer as they race to secure the business before rivals poach their brewing contracts, reported The Australian Financial Review.

In its sale advertisements, the firm said that Tribe had a brewing capacity of 35 million litres annually currently, most of it at the Goulburn plant but this could be expanded to 90 million litres a year.

Canned beer made up 70 per cent of Tribe Breweries’ sales at a time that aluminium costs have soared between 10 to 15 per cent in the past year, while also dealing with a rise in the excise duty imposed by the government and increasing material costs from the likes of hops and barley.

Tribe Breweries’ has a range of creditors including the charity foundation of Kathmandu outdoor clothing founder Jan Cameron.

It comes as a range of other Australian business have collapsed amid soaring costs and trading difficulties with economic conditions volatile.

This week Australian fresh food distribution company In2Food Group went bust for a second time in less than two years with up to $20 million in debt and 1000 creditors owed money.

PBS Building, a multimillion-dollar firm which does a mix of commercial and residential projects across Queensland, NSW and the ACT, also collapsed this week – 24 hours after it closed up its website and abandoned construction sites.

Australian fintech OpenPay became the first buy now, pay later (BNPL) service to collapse in February, while Scott’s Refrigerated Logistics – which provides trucks for major supermarkets including Coles – plunged into receivership earlier this month.

A major apartment developer in NSW, EQ Constructions, also failed last month owing at least $40 to $50 million with the construction industry continuing to be impacted by a crisis that began playing out last year.

It was the second construction company to collapse that month after awarding winning residential building company Delco Building Group in Victoria went under owing $780,000 to 50 creditors.

CDC Plumbing and Drainage, which helped “shape metropolitan sky lines throughout Australia”, also went under after 40 years with 197 staff losing their jobs on the spot.