New chief executive puts business coaching franchise 10X into administration in order to restructure

Administrators have been appointed to consultancy firm 10X, however the company’s new chief executive says 10X is not folding and instead is on track to become the “Westfield” of SMEs.

Notice was published today of the first meeting of creditors and appointment of the administrators Jirsch Sutherland for 10X Ltd, 10X Recruitment, 10X Global and Spark Partners. 

Ivan Kaye, the newly appointed chief executive of 10X and Business Strategy International (BSI), told SmartCompany the administration does not spell the end of 10X and is just part of the process of BSI’s acquisition of 10X.  

“It is a complete reorganisation. I put it into administration because I don’t know what is behind the historical stuff, I have bought the intellectual property and made arrangements with all the franchisees to partner with them,” says Kaye.

“We are going to go from strength to strength and I am very excited about it.”

“Once it has gone well we will hopefully be taking it internationally and initially to Singapore.”

“The 10X company is going to be the Westfield of SMEs, BSI will be the head office, the accountants will the shopping centre and within the shopping centre will be a number of shops as the service providers of the SMEs.”

10X was established by Nic Clark, Ryll Burgin, Michael Sheargold and Rob Nixon to enable accountants to help SMEs with their business.

The company was quickly successful and Nixon featured on SmartCompany’s Smart 50 list.

“A year ago Nixon said he could do it on his own and resigned from the board because there was a conflict of interest and sold his stake in the business to Ryll,” says Kaye.   

“I approached Ryll about two months ago and had a look at the business and I said, ‘This is a perfect synergy between BSI and 10X’.”

Kaye would not disclose what he paid for 10X however he says, “we have bought the intellectual property, all the franchisees will sign with us and we will close the corporation down”. 

Many of the 10X franchisees appear to have limited knowledge of the changes to the company at this stage.

Cameron Young, owner of Young’s Chartered Accountant said he was aware of the administration and believed it was “just a reorganisation”.

Troy Wink, director of VDB chartered accountants, says he was only made aware of the administration yesterday and was hoping it was just a restructuring.

“I am hoping that is what it is, a new person is coming and looking at buying 10X and I think it is part of a restructuring,” says Wink.

“I don’t like to count my chickens until they hatch so I will wait to see what happens.”

“We still have access to all the intellectual property and training materials so day-to-day it will not affect us at this early stage and hopefully any restructure will run seamlessly.”

“What [franchisees] are being told is that a person [Kaye] sees the value in the 10X brand and intellectual property and wants to take it to a new level.”

“He has indicated it will go forward in a franchise system and we will get like-for-like in the new agreement.”

Nixon declined to comment on the changes at 10X.