Employees owed millions after ex-Brisbane Lions sponsor's collapse
Administrators FTI Consulting were called in late last month to wind down XL Express, which had depots across Australia, and hosted an online meeting on Wednesday afternoon with more than 200 creditors.
At that meeting, creditors were told XL Express collapsed with total debt of $32.15 million, including $3.16 million in employee entitlements, $14.12 million to 'trade creditors' including owner-drivers, and almost $1.9 million to the ATO.
Documents from the meeting, obtained by this masthead, show a total of 196 employees were sacked to reduce costs during the wind-down, with limited staff retained to manage essential business functions.
FTI told creditors a continuation of trade was not commercially viable 'due to the lack of funding and the absence of realistic prospects for either a Deed of Company Arrangement or a sale of the business'.
The administrators said they had secured the company's books and 'commenced preliminary investigations' into XL's affairs. Landlords had also been contacted, as arrangements were made to vacate XL's depots across Australia.
One of the creditors, an owner-driver who did not want to be named for fear of repercussions, described the meeting as 'angry'.
'A lot of people are owed a lot of money, so I don't blame them,' he said.
The driver said he was owed thousands of dollars and was not confident of a good outcome.
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