Controversial IT company Wintech Group in administration

A Melbourne-based IT and electronics firm at the centre of a criminal probe into the falsifying of share registry documents has been placed in administration.

Wintech Group, which is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange but has been suspended from trading for about 18 months, was placed in the hands of administrators Stephen Hathway and Paul Sweeney of SV Partners on April 12.

Curiously, no notice of the appointment of administrators has been given to the ASX.

Hathway told SmartCompany that Wintech is essentially a shell and no longer has any businesses still trading.

“It’s completely down to the stage where as someone described it, it is the equivalent of working out of a box.”

He says the debts accumulated by the company are in the “several millions” of dollars, with the main amounts outstanding owned to convertible note holders.

Many of those note holders are likely to have come on board in early 2009, when Wintech – then operating in the IT and consumer electronics space – raised $2.53 million.

This capital raising became the subject of an ASIC probe after the alleged misappropriation of $1.2 million of this amount.

ASIC was examining how the money raised ended up in several private bank accounts.

In January, former Wintech managing director Kim Wong, appeared in the Melbourne Magistrate’s Court after being arrested on nine criminal charges

ASIC alleges that between February 18 and April 27 in 2009, Wong caused a series of false entries to be made in a spreadsheet of shareholders and caused false share transfer forms to be created that resulted in the transfer of Wintech shares between shareholders.

He faces a potential 21 years in jail as a result of the charges. Wong will face a committal hearing in the Melbourne Magistrate’s Court on May 23.

In addition, Wintech has faced a string of court battles with creditors seeking to recover debts. The latest, with a company called CFO Solution that was owed $85,000, was settled last October, according to ASX announcements.

But despite being suspended from trade on the ASX for most of the past six years, Wintech’s recent sharemarket announcements suggested there was some light at the end of the tunnel.

In September last year, the company announced it had entered into a deal with a company called Ramscove to examine a fresh capital raising.

However, director Trevor Kelly said in an announcement to the ASX on February 16 that this deal had ended and Wintech was examining new funding options.

“Wintech subsequently have entered into preliminary discussions with a potential funding provider. These discussions and due diligence are ongoing and no agreement has as yet been entered into,” Kelly said.

Attempts to reach Kelly at Wintech’s offices were unsuccessful.