Business lounge operator Bureaux wound up

Business lounge and serviced office operator Bureaux Australia has shut its doors and is in the process of being wound up, owner Rowena Murray announced yesterday.

In a group email to clients, Murray said attempts to re-open the Sydney and Melbourne premises, which both closed in the last month, have finally failed and the company’s affairs would be handed to an accounting firm for formal wind up.

“We have fought incredibly hard to regain possession of the sites and to continue to operate the business. All of these efforts, false starts, commitments and agreements have failed, and the entire Bureaux business has been handed over to an accounting firm to complete the wind-up,” Murray wrote.

“Up until yesterday, we genuinely had a fighting chance of re-opening, to the point of signing new lease documents, but it simply can’t go on without the support of a few key stakeholders.”

ASIC documents show the business is not officially in administration at this point.

Attempts to contact Murray this morning were not successful.

The decision to wind up the company comes just a month after Murray declared Bureaux was a “viable and valid” business in an email to clients.

On November 4, Murray told clients that the company’s Melbourne business lounge facilities in Lonsdale Street had been closed after a “long-standing dispute” with its landlord.

At the time, Murray told clients she “understood the matter to have been settled as recently as yesterday afternoon, however found circumstances had changed overnight… I want to personally assure you that Bureaux remains a viable and valid business and we very much look forward to putting this unpleasantness and disruption behind us.”

Bureaux offered memberships starting at $50 per month through to $2,750 month. In Melbourne, the facility included conference and meeting rooms, a cafe and lounge and private workstations.

The majority of the company’s clients were small and medium business owners, some of who used the facilities as their main place of business.