Rich list duo’s listed construction company in administration

Listed construction company Verticon, which has rich list duo David Goldberger and David Wieland as directors and major shareholders, has been placed in administration after being suspended from trade on the ASX since March 23.

Goldberger and Wieland, who were valued at $625 million on last year’s BRW Rich 200 list, are best known as the founders and major investors in Austexx, the parent company of the DFO Factory Outlet chain, which almost collapsed last year as it teetered under more than $1 billion of debt.

The pair has sat on the board of Verticon since it listed on December 2004. Along with associate Sam Fink, Goldberger and Wieland were left as the only directors on the board after director Noel Henderson and company secretary Brett Coleman quit the company last week.

Verticon warned in March that its key source a revenue – a $4.7 million consultancy agreement to provide construction and project management services to a shopping centre project in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne – was likely to provide much less than $4 million in revenue, and potentially zero revenue.

That project is being developed by a company called North Lodge Holdings, which is associated with Goldberger and Wieland.

It is not clear whether the duo paid any consultancy fees to Verticon prior to its collapse into administration. The fees were due to be paid before the end of the 2010-11 financial year.

The collapse of Verticon is further complicated by legal action between Goldberger and Wieland and former Verticon director Noel Henderson.

In November last year a subsidiary of Noel Henderson’s Melbourne-based construction and engineering company Contexx lodged a writ in the Victorian Supreme Court, alleging that DFO’s parent company Austexx breached the Trade Practices Act over a $14 million loan the company took from a joint venture company that was constructing the South Wharf development.

Verticon is now in the hands of Matthew Caddy and Peter Anderson of McGrathNicol.

A creditors meeting will be held next week.