Four St Hilliers sites being built for Department of Defence to reopen today
Four St Hilliers Construction sites will reopen today, creditors of the failed business have been advised by administrators Trent Hancock and Michael Hird of Moore Stephens Sydney Corporate Recovery Group.
The four sites, which take the total number of sites reopened since the company went into voluntary administration last week to eight, are all training facilities that are being constructed for the Department of Defence and have a combined value of $170 million.
They are:
- Training facility at Watsonia, Victoria
- Wide Bay Training Facility, Tin Can Bay, Queensland
- Greenbank Training Facility, Greenbank, Queensland
- Maintenance Training Facility, Bandiana, Victoria
In a statement the administrators and St Hilliers executive chairman Tim Casey and his team said they were optimistic that the 13 NSW social housing projects would reopen next week following a “constructive meeting with NSW Public Works on Friday”.
A creditors’ meeting will be held in Sydney on Friday.
Contractors on the defence sites are still owed money by St Hilliers, with ABC Wide Bay reporting that a Gympie electrical contractor PHE is owed $1 million for work on the defence force training base at Tin Can Bay.
PHE manager Geoff Lobegeier says PHE will lodge a claim for the money but is worried the bill will not be paid.
“I will do my best to pay my subcontractors because I've got a contract with them and ... that will leave us short ... so a business can only survive on money flow, so that's a huge concern," he told the ABC.
Lobegeier is demanding the federal government step in and pay him the money.
In the statement the administrators said they were in “active dialogue with all clients regarding all St Hilliers Construction Pty Ltd sites with the objective of reopening all remaining sites in NSW, Queensland, ACT and Victoria as soon as possible”.
“The administrator and the company will continue to keep all stakeholders informed of progress,” the statement says.