Fairfax Media | 1 December 2015
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Less than a week after going into voluntary administration, ASX-listed education and training services company Vocation has been closed down, leaving 150 of its 180 employees without a job and more than 10,000 students in limbo.
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In a statement released to the Australian Securities Exchange after 5pm on Monday 30 November administrator Peter Gothard of Ferrier Hodgson said the company’s operations had ceased immediately.
Please be advised that as a result of further customer contract terminations, the lack of available liquidity to fund operations and the lack of ongoing support from key stakeholders, the voluntary administrators of Vocation Ltd have had no alternative but to cease the majority of the company’s operations effective from 30 ,November 2015. As a consequence, the administrators have terminated approximately150 staff across the business.
The administrators will now attempt to sell what little is left to raise some money:
In addition to pursuing all available recoveries from the company’s assets and affairs, the voluntary administrators will be seeking expressions of interest for the group’s intellectual property and one of its operating businesses, Customer Service Institute of Australia.
Between 10,000 and 12,000 students in Victoria, NSW, Queensland and Western Australia are affected by the collapse while there were 180 staff.
The Victorian government has previously indicated it will seek to place affected students in the Victorian TAFE system; under Tuition Assurance arrangements, presumably students can also be placed with private providers.