New day dawns for Wimmers
THE sale of Wimmers Cordials was expected to be settled yesterday as creditors of the failed Cooroy Mountain Spring Water Group, of which it was part, take action to force bankruptcy on principal Greg Dinsey.
Receivers KordaMentha confirmed that a deal had been reached with millionaire businessman Peter Lavin to buy the soft drink portion of the business which employed about 50% of the embattled Cooroy Mountain Spring Water Group workforce.
Rob Hutson of KordaMentha said given the disruption to the previous attempted sale of the full company, he would not comment further until the Wimmers' deal was formally settled.
He said he was not sure if the water business would be able to continue to trade beyond this week.
"A number of creditors of the water business will bring action in Sydney today against Greg Dinsey," Mr Hutson said this week.
The sale of the combined water and soft drink businesses was blocked by Mr Dinsey who placed a caveat in the Supreme Court of Queensland over the land on which the spring and bottling plant sit.
That matter has been unable to be tested because Mr Dinsey then placed himself in the hands of a psychiatrist.
Mr Lavin said he expected to be able to take full control of Wimmers .
He said the business would be debt free. He has moved to employ additional staff in Brisbane and at Cooroy and was in talks to distribute Wimmers nationally.
New equipment was being purchased with the intent to "crank up" the business.
Mr Lavin said he held talks last week with the ANZ Bank and Korda Mentha where he indicated his willingness to purchase at market value the Cooroy Mountain Spring Water land and the equipment at auction value.
"We'll keep chipping away at it," he said.
"We will start again from scratch if we have to and re-employ staff."
