Sydney fabrication company collapses into liquidation, impacting tradies and employees

Its demise came months after shutting down its phone lines, letting staff go and with tradies unable to get in touch with anyone at the company.

EXCLUSIVE

A fabrication company has collapsed into liquidation just months after shutting down its phone lines, letting staff go and ghosting tradies.

On Tuesday, Sydney-based YME Metal Projects Pty Ltd, which subcontracted to building companies completing metalwork such as ballustrading and handrails, went into voluntary liquidation.

The business worked on a number of commercial projects including private hospitals, high schools and apartment blocks. Antony Resnick of insolvency firm dVT Group is the appointed liquidator.

News.com.au was in the middle of an investigation and had contacted the director for comment, just hours before the firm finally went bust.

According to documents lodged with ASIC, it owes money to a number of people and businesses.

YME owes 44 trade creditors amounts totalling $409,000, preliminary investigations indicate.

A further 15 employees are owed $210,000, from both unpaid superannuation and annual leave entitlements.

A CreditorWatch report news.com.au obtained also revealed that the ATO had lodged a $1.291 million tax default against the company earlier this year.

Jason* is the owner of one small business owed around $30,000 from its collapse and he is fuming.

“You try to take people at their word. It means nothing,” the Sydney tradie told news.com.au.

A screenshot from YME’s still active website.

Jason said he had a good business relationship with YME and said although they’d been “slow from time to time” when it came to paying him, he thought they would pull through earlier this year.

He supplied materials for them in January, February and March, but at the end of each month, no payment came through even though it was supposed to.

“Generally what I do with my business, if they’re people you know, once you get to 60 days (without payment) you put them on stop credit,” Jason explained.

“It’d happened to me so I contacted them (YME).”

However, the company assured he would be paid soon.

Jason agreed to supply materials for another month, into April, which brought the amount of money he was owed to $30,000.

But instead of receiving his money, he never heard from YME again. His texts and emails went unanswered, while the business disconnected its phone lines.

“I dropped some material off at the end of the month, I heard a conversation between a staff member, they had the phone on speaker, when I walked in, what I heard made me realise that they had serious cash flow (issues),” he said.

Growing concerned, he rushed back to the site to try to get some of his material back several months ago.

“I got a little bit back but hardly anything,” he lamented.

YME Metal Projects went into liquidation on Wednesday.

Another creditor, Max*, who also did not want to provide his real name, is owed around $26,000 from YME’s demise.

“They’ve been a client of ours for a number of years,” Max told news.com.au.

“They’ve always seemed a bit unprofessional, paid late.

“There came a time where there was a mad rush to get all these jobs finished (which is) a telltale sign they were going broke.”

When he chased them over his money, he said YME had “disappeared off the face of the earth”.

He employed a solicitor who issued the firm with a letter of demand and was in the process of taking it through the local courts prior to the liquidation.

YME informed Jason and Max that they had fallen into financial strife because a big builder owed them a lot of money, but once this was sorted all would be well.

But according to documents lodged with ASIC, the largest debt another entity owes them is $22,000, which wouldn’t even cover Jason’s bill, let alone the other creditors.

YME did not respond to requests for comment.

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YME appears to not have been operating since April.

In another sad twist, a creditor that YME owes money to is also shutting down.

Fethers Glazing System is only owed $5600 from YME so it is unclear if its shut down is a result of the YME debt.

An employee told news.com.au that Fethers Glazing System used to have offices in Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide.

However, its Victorian and Queensland branches have since shut up shop and the South Australian one is slated to follow suit.

“We’re closing down at the end of September,” the employee said. “We were the last, we’ll be closing down.”

In a statement online, Fethers said: “Unfortunately, due to difficult trading conditions FGS will be closing its Showroom and Warehouse in Adelaide located at 185 Richmond Road, Richmond effective Friday 29th September 2023.

“FGS is disappointed for all involved, it has been a long-established business on the site, with several long-term staff and many long and loyal customers.”

Fethers had been in business for 140 years but said while it was shutting down its offices as well as its Silicone and Glazing supplies businesses, it would still remain a supplier for hardware.

We “will continue to trade in the Hardware sector, all be it (sic) a smaller range, out of Melbourne from October onwards. A separate advice will be issued at a later date around these new arrangements,” the statement added.

Fethers did not respond to news.com.au’s requests for comment.

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Originally published as Sydney fabrication company collapses into liquidation, impacting tradies and employees