Franchisees lose in the liquidation of the Kleenmaid Group voted for by about 80 creditors of the 14 companies yesterday.

Voluntary Administrator John Greig said the next step will be for the liquidators to sell the realisable assets and to discuss further funding options available through the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).

While the appointment of a liquidator will provide employees with the right to apply for compensation through General Employee Entitlements Redundancy Scheme franchisees are in a difficult position.

“They have essentially lost their investment,” Greig said.

Greig confirmed the franchise white goods group has more than $102m in liabilities. He believes that there have been significant breaches of directorsÍ duties and there is very little chance of a dividend to unsecured creditors.

“Creditors have today expressed their disbelief about the likely date of insolvent trading being as early as 2007, a number of consumer creditors have been hurt by this collapse and unfortunately, it appears their position will be that there is not enough stock or assets to satisfy their claims” he said.

Greig acknowledged that one of the challenges of the investigations have been the significant intermingling of the transactions of the companies.

When asked if the global financial crisis had been the major contributor to the challenges faced by the group, Greig said, “The financial crisis has affected in many businesses, but the liquidators believe that group had been insolvent before the global financial crisis.”

Two of the three Kleenmaid group directors, Andrew and Brad Young, attended the meeting but did not address creditorsÍ questions directly.