Blow out: Company connected to Blow Dry Bar collapses into liquidation

A company linked to hairdressing chain Blow Dry Bar has been placed in liquidation.

Blow Dry Bar was founded in 2008 by Sydney businessman Nathan Cuneen and at one stage had up to 23 outlets across the country.

But according to a notice published by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, Angus Gordon of Macquarie Gordon & Co was appointed liquidator of a company that formally traded as Blow Dry Bar Franchising on January 15.

ASIC documents seen by SmartCompany show Cuneen was the sole director and shareholder of the now deregistered company, which now goes under its Australian company number 110 496 083. The company’s previous business address was the Blow Dry Bar at the MLC Centre in the Sydney CBD.

The company was first registered in 2004 as Muffin Break Campbelltown, before being changed to Bliss Laser Clinic in 2006. The business name Blow Dry Bar was added to the company in 2008, with the company’s main trading name switching to Blow Dry Bar in February 2011 before it started trading as Blow Dry Bar Franchising in June 2011.

An application to wind up the company was filed in August 2011 but withdrawn a month later in September.

The company was deregistered for GST in June 2013, and its status was changed to “strike off action in progress” in November 2014. A strike off action can be initiated by a company or it can be related to a winding-up order, or initiated by ASIC if a company has not submitted its annual forms.

A spokesperson for Macquarie Gordon & Co told SmartCompany the company it has been appointed to liquidate had ceased trading prior to the appointment on January 15 and based on the limited information provided to Macquarie by the company director, the business “ceased being a franchise at least 12 months ago and the franchisor’s activities had been sold”.

Cuneen told SmartCompany this morning he is no longer connected to the Blow Dry Bar business, having sold the company “quite some time” ago but he did not respond to questions about the liquidation of the company that previously traded as Blow Dry Bar Franchising.

Cuneen is now operating a business called Cherry Blow Dry Bar in the US. Cherry Blow Dry Bar, which began franchising in 2013, has six outlets in the US, with two more outlets listed as “coming soon” on the company website.

According to the same website, Cuneen says he grew Blow Dry Bar to “23 location in Australia” before he “saw the same opportunity in the US”.

“I continually made improvements, called it Cherry Blow Dry Bar and made it available to entrepreneurs like you,” Cuneen says in a section of the website aimed at prospective Cherry Blow Dry Bar franchisees.

There are now only eight remaining Blow Dry Bar outlets in Australia, with the business confirming to customers via its Facebook page in December that a ninth store in Perth had closed.

According to ASIC, a company called Moonwink Pty Ltd, which traded under the name Blow Dry Bar, was also placed in liquidation in September 2014.

SmartCompany contacted Blow Dry Bar but did not receive a response prior to publication.

A meeting of creditors for the company that previously traded as Blow Dry Bar Franchising is scheduled to take place in Sydney on January 23.