Brindabella Christian College has been facing financial difficulties. Photo: Michelle Kroll
The administrators appointed for Brindabella Christian College in the wake of its financial difficulties are currently seeking a new college operator.
A Deloitte spokesperson has confirmed the expression of interest process for a new operator of the college is underway and said the wider school community would be updated as soon as possible.
The Lyneham-based private school went into voluntary administration on 5 March.
Since then, it has been in the hands of the Deloitte administrators after not being able to pay some of its teachers and facing a wind-up application from the Australian Taxation Office over an $8 million debt.
Deloitte has said its goal will be for it to continue operating, albeit possibly in a slimmer state and with repayment plans in place for its secured creditor, NAB, and the Tax Office.
The current board may also need to make way for the restructure to work and be agreeable to all parties.
The first creditors meeting will have to be held around 18 March, with a second creditors meeting then held within 20 business days.
At this second meeting, the administrators have to make three recommendations: return the company back where it was, which is probably unlikely because of the Tax Office’s wind-up application; do a Deed of Company Arrangement to keep the school running and make an offer to creditors; or put the school into liquidation.
National Head of Restructuring & Recovery at RSM Australia Frank Lo Pilato believed the latter was unlikely because it was not really in anybody’s interests.
He said NAB, as the secured creditor, would prefer for the school to stay open because it was the vehicle for earning income and repaying the loan and interest to the bank.
The administrators would also look at the books transaction by transaction – including commercial transactions with directors and related parties – to identify where the school had gone wrong and if anything untoward had occurred.
The administrators would need cash to keep the school running, so securing Commonwealth funding, which the Education Department has already said will continue, would be a priority, as well as seeking funding from NAB to run the school and the administration, which will have the bank’s interests at heart.
Mr Lo Pilato said the administrators’ key message for the community would be that the school was still operating, teachers were being paid (those who hadn’t been were paid last Friday), and the doors were open.
Meanwhile, Brindabella Christian College board chair Greg Zwajgenberg says he has been frozen out of the administration process.
He said administrators told him five minutes before the first staff meeting they had organised that his presence was not welcome.
“This decision was accompanied by statements made by the lead administrator in the staff meeting that the current board was ‘very unlikely to return’, specifically discussing me personally,” Mr Zwajgenberg.
“It is deeply hurtful that, after all the non-public efforts my wife Teija and I made, including providing a crucial $155,000 loan on 7 February to ensure all staff wages due were paid, and specifically given it was to these same outspoken staff; in return a concerted attempt was made to demean and marginalise me personally by the administrators, who knew full well my wife and I had shored up the previous payroll.”
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