Poor summer trade leads to nationwide airconditioning business collapse

Applied Climate Control has entered administration after a bad summer last year put the airconditioning hire business under pressure.

The business had stores in every state with the exception of ACT and the Northern Territory.

Stephen Michell and David Quin of PCI Partners were appointed as administrators last week.

Michell told SmartCompany he is currently advertising the business for sale while investigating the reasons why it has had to go into administration.

“I’ve only been working on it for a short period of time but one of the problems was that there was a very bad summer last year, and the business is primarily a hirer of airconditioning equipment and I think most companies in that industry had a bad year last year,” says Michell.

“Normally with this company it makes all its money over that summer period and the money it makes then gets it through the winter and then off it goes again.”

Michell says Applied Climate Control’s 40 staff have been made redundant as “there is no funding there at this stage to enable me to trade the business on”.

The collapse comes as recent statistics from the Australian Securities and Investment Commission show another rise in business collapses.

ASIC’s statistics show that for the most recent three months, 2,655 businesses have entered external administration, an increase on the previous three months when administrations were at 2,589.

Applied Climate Control’s major creditor is the National Australia Bank and a first meeting of creditors will be held on September 17 in Melbourne.