GCB Constructions placed in liquidation after creditors reject last-ditch bid from director

After months of uncertainty about the future of the company and its hundreds of creditors, a major Gold Coast building company has been wound up and placed into liquidation.

After months of uncertainty, Gold Coast building company GCB Constructions has been wound up and placed into liquidation.

GCB owed more than $47m to suppliers, subcontractors, lenders, staff and the tax office when it went into voluntary administration on July 24, according to liquidators David Stimpson and Adam Kersey of SV Partners.

Construction of more than 500 apartments were left in limbo in the collapse.

Creditors rejected a last-ditch bid from GCB managing director Trent Clark to keep control of the family company via a deed of company arrangement (DOCA), which would have required an injection of funding from related companies and other unspecified sources.

GCB Constructions Vantage View apartments at Benowa. Picture David Clark

A previous report from the liquidators said almost $72m in payments made by GCB to subcontractors and suppliers as far back as November 2022 could be “clawed back” and shared between all creditors, the report said.

GCB had 13 projects under way when it went under.

Administrators found the Gold Coast company stopped paying tax more than a year ago and defaulted on a $10m loan in the months before its ­licence was suspended.

Mr Stimpson said GCB stopped paying staff superannuation in February and had likely been insolvent from January 1 this year.

Trent Clark.

Initial estimates showed GCB owed more than $5.2m in tax and more than $1.7m in superannuation and other staff entitlements.

Outstanding claims against the company range in value from a few hundreds dollars to a few million, with small and medium trade businesses among the hardest hit.

Some family-owned local businesses are owed six-figure sums.