Court appoints liquidator to company in Nicholas Bolton’s Australian Style group after legal fight

A company belonging to maverick investor and IT entrepreneur Nicholas Bolton has been placed in liquidation by order of the Supreme Court of Victoria and is now in the hands of liquidator John Lindholm of insolvency firm Ferrier Hodgson.

Australian Style Pty Ltd is one of 15 companies in Bolton’s Australian Style Group and previously operated a domain name registration business.

However, in July 2010, Australian Style Pty Ltd lost an appeal in the Victorian Supreme Court against a decision by the Australian Domain Name Administrator to strip Australian Style of its registrar accreditation over security concerns.

This decision effectively made it impossible for the business to continue in the domain name sector and Bolton has been transferring the former customers of the business to his other domain name registration operations.

In December 2010, the Australian Domain Name Administrator applied to the Supreme Court seeking a winding up order against Australian Style, trading as Bottle Domains. The Administrator said in December that it had served Australian Style with a statutory demand for payment of $373, 312.49 in costs, but this had not been complied with before the parties went to court this week.

Bolton, best known for his controversial attempt to wind up Brisbane toll-road operator BrisConnections in 2009, told SmartCompany this morning that the liquidation would not have any material effect on the wider Australian Style group of companies.

John Lindholm of Ferrier Hodgson was not available for comment prior to publication.

The Australian Domain Name Administrator was also contacted for comment but declined.

Bolton shot to prominence in Australian corporate circles two years ago when he became the largest shareholder in BrisConnections in early 2009 after amassing a 19.7% stake for less than $100,000. But each unit holder then was required to pay a $2-per-share instalment to BrisConnections over the following 12 months, meaning Bolton faced a debt of $154 million on his shares.

Bolton then called an extraordinary general meeting of the company in the hope of winding up the company and getting out of paying the instalments.

But before the meeting in April, Bolton sold the voting rights to his shares to Leighton Holdings, the major contractor working on the road, for $4.5 million. Leighton then voted Bolton’s shares against the wind-up resolution and Bolton offloaded his shares to a family friend under a prearranged option deal.

The company at the centre of Bolton’s sharemarket plays, Australian Style Investments, is not in administration.