Financial services firm NavraInvest has been placed in administration following the company’s failure to secure a third-party distribution channel.
Insolvency practice Dean-Willcocks Shepard Recovery and Strategy was appointed as the company’s administrator on 23 March, ASIC documents said.
Last month, NavraInvest was forced to enter joint venture (JV) talks with a third party in a bid to salvage the company from financial ruin after NavraInvest’s distribution channel and financial planning division, Navra Financial Services (NFS), was placed in liquidation in July last year.
It is understood NavraInvest’s JV talks fell through, leaving the company’s directors with no choice but to call in the administrators.
The collapse of NFS was due to the company’s high exposure to agribusiness firm Great Southern and to a lesser extent volatile markets, NavraInvest director Steve Navra told InvestorDaily last month.
At the time of Great Southern’s collapse, NFS had around $30 million of clients’ investments in the failed agribusiness firm. All of the $30 million was lost, Navra said.
“I don’t think it will go under entirely; I think we may choose to close it if we don’t have a distribution channel,” he said.
“Failing the JV, the directors will probably hold a shareholders’ meeting and put it to shareholders that we will probably look to close the business.”
Navra was no longer a director of the firm, having removed himself as of late February, according to ASIC documents.
He said the company’s joint venture negotiations were crucial to its survival.
According to NavraInvest’s June 2011 annual report, the company’s investment of more than $1.6 million in NFS had been written off.
“The deferred tax asset, which was $219,000 related to the potential future benefit associated with accumulated losses, has also been written off,” the report said.
“The overall loss made by the company for the year is $1,420,263.”
