The creditors meeting for Excite Holidays took place yesterday (22 January), with Administrator Morgan Kelly from KPMG revealing the scale of the failed company’s collapse.
During the meeting, Morgan Kelly stated: “any return to unsecured creditors was extremely unlikely.”
Kelly also exposed Excite’s complicated corporate structure, with a diagram of international companies located in Greece, the UK, Canada, USA, Singapore, Thailand, NZ, and Australia.
READ: WHAT NOW? Excite Holidays Officially Goes Into Voluntary Administration
READ: ANGRY BIRDS: Agents Slam Excite Holidays Connected Travelyou.com
A statement from Excite’s Directors, Nicholas Stavropoulos and George Papaioannou, was read to the meeting, expressing “deep regret as to the impact to agents and passenger arrangements over the past few weeks”.
What’s going on?
The statement confirmed that 2018/19 was the start of Excite’s trading performance, with the slump continuing into 2019/20.
The Directors’ statement said Excite had been exploring options to strengthen its balance sheet to enable it to rejoin ATAS as soon as possible.
However, this did not happen quickly enough.
The Administrator, Morgan Kelly, detailed a massive shortfall, with up to $35 million owed to creditors.
The figure includes a $10.8 million debt to the National Australia Bank which is secured by the company’s Sydney office building, $1 million to employees, $800,000 to general suppliers, $6.5 million owed to various international companies within the group, and up to $16 million owed to travel agents and travel suppliers.
We will keep you up to date as we learn more.
Support for agents
Other travel companies have stepped in to try and support those left in the lurch by the situation.
Destination specialist Beyond Travel is offering rates at cost for agents with affected bookings and extra staff on board ready to help.
READ: MATES RATES: STUBA Supports Agents Affected By Excite Closure
Online wholesaler STUBA is offering “Agents Discount” rates for Australian and New Zealand Travel Agents who have been affected by the closure of Excite and Viva Holidays has set up a special hotline on 1300 552 323 to support agents.
Click here for more information.