Supreme Court clears way for Poolrite sale

Poolrite’s liquidators, SV Partners, have been successful in their application to the Supreme Court - meaning the sale to Evolve is now unconditional. A renewed settlement date has been set for Friday August 2, and the sale is expected to proceed.

Evolve managing director Ty Hermans says that everything is set, ready for settlement on Friday and he fully expects it to go ahead.

The liquidators went to the Supreme Court to enable them to compromise the debts owing by Poolrite’s Related Parties to $100,000. This was so they could accept an offer of that amount from Ross Palmer in exchange for terminating a 2012 agreement that had granted his company Aquarius Pty Ltd the right to use the Poolrite intellectual property (IP) free of royalties and other charges until the end of 2025.

As part of the bargain, Palmer will also assign two patents to Poolrite Research. In exchange he will be released from any insolvent trading claim by the liquidators, and released from debts owing by his “Related Companies” to Poolrite Australia and Poolrite Research.

SV Partners believes the 2012 IP arrangement between Palmer’s companies was an ”uncommercial transaction”. However, as they also believe there is no realistic prospect of any substantial return from an insolvent trading claim, and not wanting to delay the very real opportunity to sell the company to Evolve, they favoured the deal.

But the committee of inspection did not concur, so they had to make the application to the Supreme Court of Queensland to compromise the debts.

This has now been done, and there is now nothing standing in the way of the sale to Evolve, and with that the long-running story of Poolrite’s collapse and sale is likely to come to a conclusion.

Be sure to check the SPLASH! website on Friday August 2 for an update to this story.

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