By Patrick Avenell

Retravision Southern administrator KordaMentha has refuted claims it is “strangling” members wishing to leave the collapse co-operating to join other groups, telling Current.com.au that it is happy for stores to defect, providing they clear any debts with the secured creditors.

Bryan Webster, a partner at KordaMentha, gave a detailed response to Current.com.au’s questions yesterday, after we were told by Retravision insiders that limitations being placed on the members’ ability to move between groups were “strangling” their businesses.

“Overall, I am very happy for stores to join other groups and my staff and the remaining Retravision Southern staff will do everything we can to ensure this occurs as quickly as possible,” Webster said.

“I have a duty to all creditors of Retravision Southern to ensure the company’s assets are realised for the best price reasonably attainable.  Given the stores are debtors of Retravision Southern, each store needs to ensure that any and all amounts owing to Retravision Southern are paid on time.

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Current.com.au has been told that four Retravision members have so far defected to the Betta Stores Retail (BSR) Group since Southern was placed in administration in late May. Only one has so far been identified: Wonthaggi Home Appliances.

Both our sources and Webster corroborated the previously made claims that a majority of Southern members want to leave the Retravision establishment, with one insider saying “60-70 per cent” and Webster saying there are “large volumes…of stores wishing to exit”.

Although there are a large number of exit requests being lodged, Webster said staff was working efficiently to process them, and that turnaround has a quoted time of 24 hours. He did reiterate that stores would not be able to leave Retravision Southern if they had moneys owing.

“Given my duty to creditors and owing to the debtor insurance policy that Retravision Southern has, I am unable to release the securities that Retravision Southern holds over a particular store until that store has paid all amounts it owes to Retravision Southern,” Webster said.