Company collapses into liquidation owing $4.2m, director makes bizarre comment

Tradies are raging over the collapse of the lead contractor on a multimillion dollar government building project, and the company director has denied knowledge.

EXCLUSIVE

Tradies are raging over the collapse of the lead contractor on a multimillion dollar government project which has left them tens of thousands of dollars out of pocket.

Rubbing salt in the wound is the fact that the liquidated company pocketed a hefty payment from the government for completing the project — but this was never passed onto subcontractors.

Djin Siauw, one of the shareholders of Exel Infragroup Pty Ltd, strongly disputes that the firm pocketed money meant for tradies.

News.com.au can reveal that last month, on July 14, Exel Infragroup Pty Ltd went into liquidation. The Victorian-based business was a civil excavation firm that operated within the Exel group of companies, with a focus on project management.

It was also the lead contractor for parts of the state’s Big Build rail project, in charge of the North East Line Upgrade at Lilliput and Balmattum in rural Victoria, with subcontractors reporting to the company and issuing invoices to them.

A creditor’s report news.com.au has obtained, compiled by the appointed liquidators Petr Vrsecky and Paul Allan of insolvency firm PKF Melbourne, shows that the failed company now owes $4.225 million to 83 creditors.

One of those is Synergy Traffic Management, a small Shepparton business with just 18 staff, who were subcontractors on the rail project.

Synergy’s operations manager, Callum Phillips, told news.com.au the business is owed $63,000 in the wake of the company collapse. “Our biggest question is where the hell did that money go?” he said.

The company went bust after completing part of the North East Line Upgrade in Victoria as lead contractor.

Exel Infragroup has left in its wake a trail of disgruntled subcontractors.

In another bizarre turn of events, when news.com.au contacted the director of Exel Infragroup, he admitted he had no idea why the company had collapsed and that he didn’t know much about the business.

Wan Lioe Tan was listed as the sole director of Exel Infragroup in the liquidation documents.

“I know the company, but not in a very deep level, there are other people involved,” Mr Tan told news.com.au.

“We didn’t go well, I understand. I know the operation in general.”

When asked how he could only have a general understanding of a company where he was the sole director, he hung up the phone and did not respond to any more questions.

Mr Phillips, one of the subcontractors, never dealt with Mr Tan. He said he was “led to believe” two other men, called Dijn Siauw and Alan Kwee, were in the company’s leadership team.

When his business entered into an agreement with Exel Infragroup, Mr Siauw was listed as the managing director in the contract.

For a related company called Exel Workforce, Mr Siauw and Mr Kwee are named as the director and CEO, respectively. There is no mention of Mr Tan on the Exel Group website.

In a statement to news.com.au, Alan Kwee said he had never been an official officeholder, director or employee of Exel Infragroup and had been contracted in a consulting capacity.

Mr Siauw, meanwhile, said he was the director of Exel Infragroup until early 2021 before passing it on to Mr Tan.

“Post my resignation of directorship I continued to assist Exel Infragroup with collection of outstanding debtors/negotiating outstanding variations, negotiation of payments with creditors and attempted to secure additional funding to ensure the future viability of Exel Infragroup,” he added. “The liquidators have been in close contact with the appropriate people related to Exel Infragroup since their appointment.”

One of the liquidators, Mr Vrsecky, told news.com.au he was having trouble getting in touch with the three men to help him with his investigations.

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The company structure for Exel Workforce, a related entity.

Alan Kwee said he was only a consultant for Exel Infragroup, although he is listed as a director of the overall group of companies.

Dijn Siauw was the former director of Exel Infragroup but the new director is a man called Wan Lioe Tan, who hung up the phone on news.com.au.

Mr Phillips explained that everyone in his workplace, Synergy Traffic Management, was very excited to learn that the Big Build Rail project was coming to their doorstep in rural Victoria.

“We generally don’t have rail projects in regional areas in Shepparton,” he explained. “It was pitched that there would be years of ongoing work and that it would be worth our while.”

But the opposite has proved to be true.

As well as being left out of pocket directly from Exel Infragroup’s collapse, Synergy Traffic Management has lost even more as it was encouraged to upskill its workers.

“People were encouraging us to get involved, spending money on upskilling staff. The cost of upskilling staff members was $8,000 each,” Mr Phillips said.

“That’s obviously an expense we would never have put ourselves through” if they’d known the company would go bust, he added.

His employer started working with Exel Infragroup in January last year, and the job was done by October.

Exel received the full payout from the government for completing the job.

Synergy Traffic Management was expecting its own payout in turn but it never came, and they’ve been chasing the company for their money ever since, for the past eight months.

The traffic controller company had actually initiated winding up proceedings against Exel, but before it got to court, the embattled firm went into voluntary liquidation.

Mr Phillips said he was speaking up as “We don’t want anyone else to find themselves in the same position, being burnt by the big builders”.

The project was completed a year ago but subcontractors have still not been paid.

The government paid Exel Infragroup for all their work.

Liquidators of Exel Infragroup believe they will be able to recover $350,000 for creditors from the company’s assets including selling an oil rig.

“They were making significant losses over the last few years. That’s essentially why the company’s gone broke,” Mr Vrsecky told news.com.au.

By the time of the company’s collapse, there were only four employees left, he said.

“The bulk of the creditors are subcontractors and suppliers,” he added.

Exel Infragroup has been a registered company since October 2019.

Djin Siauw, one of the shareholders of Exel Infragroup Pty Ltd, said there had been confusion in the amounts owing."67 of the 83 creditors were casual workers – many of whom were only engaged in other projects in less than two weeks," he said.

"Due to the timing of the collapse, there was circa $30k outstanding superannuation payment. The total amount owing across the eight trade creditors was circa $650,000.

"Most of the $4.22m unpaid liabilities referred to were the shareholders’ loans to the company. Hence the shareholders were the biggest losers in the untimely collapse of Exel Infragroup.

Mr Siauw said he wishes to apologise to the unpaid sub-contractors for the "genuine collapse".

"The company was adversely impacted by the impacts of Covid-19, increased labour and material costs, fixed cost contracts and the worst ever rain falls in 2022," he said. "Our serious attempts and financial sacrifices failed to achieve the desired outcomes."

This isn’t the first time a company under the Exel banner has collapsed recently.

Mr Vrsecky was also appointed as the liquidator of a related entity called Exel Galaxy, which “operated in conjunction” with Exel Infragoup and provided NBN services to customers, according to the report.

The company went bust owing $5 million in 2020.

The Exel Group specialises in drilling holes in the ground, whether that be for excavation of NBN, and operated as a project management entity.

Exel Infragroup is still being advertised on their website.

A VicTrack spokesperson told news.com.au they had paid Exel Infragroup for the works carried out on the North East Line Upgrade, an entirely taxpayer-funded project.

“Exel Infragroup is responsible for managing its subcontractors,” the spokesperson added.

“We appointed Exel Infragroup to deliver the works following a competitive tendering process, in line with the Victorian Government’s Purchasing Board (VGPB) Guidelines.”

Wendy Lovell, the member for Northern Victoria Region, is calling for all impacted subcontractors to be reimbursed and said it was "unacceptable" that this was able to happen under the watchful eye of the state government. 

“The liquidation of civil excavation company Exel Infragroup is impacting several subcontractors involved in the Andrews Labor Government’s North-East Line Project, including Synergy Traffic Management of Shepparton," she said in a statement to news.com.au.

"These sub-contractors are small businesses already doing it tough in the current economic climate and the fact that they remain unpaid for work completed on a State Government project is unacceptable.

“Synergy Traffic Management alone is owed $63,000.

“The Andrews Labor Government must step in and ensure all sub-contractors who have undertaken work on State Government infrastructure are paid in full and I call on Minister for Transport Infrastructure Jacinta Allan to ensure payments are made immediately.”

The local Shepparton member, Kim O’Keeffe, told news.com.au it was an “extremely stressful time” and that it was “difficult” for any business to be impacted by another company’s collapse.

“The collapse is in the hands of an appointed liquidator who is inquiring into Exel lnfragroup Pty Ltd contracts with Australian Rail Track Corporation to gain a better understanding of the reasons for the failure of the company,” she added.

News.com.au also contacted Jacinta Allan, the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure, who did not respond to requests for comment.

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