Daisytek in liquidation

However, administrator PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is still negotiating with several parties for the sale of Daisytek's warehouse and other assets in Alexandria, Sydney. “We are attempting to transfer the assets to a new company and Daisytek Australia Pty Ltd will be liquidated. We will sell the facility to a new company in a different industry,” a spokesperson of PwC told iTnews.

Meanwhile, Daisytek's Brisbane operation--which specialises in office products distribution--is close to being sold. “We're close to signing a contract with somebody there,” he said.

David Cullen, managing director at Daisytek, said a deal for the sale of the Sydney warehouse should materialise this week. “It's unlikely to be an IT distribution business for Sydney." The potential acquirer will employ most of the Daisytek staff in Sydney and Brisbane, Cullen said. The company has 65 staff in total in both offices.

PwC declined to speculate on how much creditors are likely to receive following the sale.

Cullen said he was “exceptionally disappointed” by the fall of Daisytek, saying the Australian business had issues that could be resolved but was a victim of its parent company, Daisytek International Corporation, entering Chapter 11 in early May.

This resulted in the Australian subsidiary entering voluntary administration shortly after. At the time, Cullen expected that the organisation would trade through its problems and come out a stronger company.

Daisytek Australia lost its major supplier HP late last month, closed its Perth office and retrenched 28 staff. For around two months, vendors had tightened credit lines to the distributor and tightened them even further which subsidiaries of Daisytek's US parent company filed for Chapter 11 protection.

Other distributors have declined to discuss how much business they have acquired following the demise of Daisytek. Both Digiland and Tech Pacific said they had experienced a natural increase in HP consumable sales but declined to elaborate further.

Meanwhile, HP is currently out to tender for a new consumables distributor which coincides with the severing of a distribution agency with Daisytek Australia.