McGrathNicol have taken control of Konvoy Kegs as receivers with the advisory and restructuring firm looking to sell and / or recapitalise the keg rental and tracking tech business.
Konvoy general manager Nick Becker told The Crafty Pint their ANZ business remains profitable but that their expansion into overseas markets had been creating significant cost pressures. Ultimately, when ongoing attempts to strike up a new partnership in the UK continued to drag on into the new year, their main lender Aquasia decided to cut off funding funding.
“At that stage, we had very little debt,” he said, “but we couldn’t afford to keep running the business.”
Since launching in 2019, Konvoy had expanded to operate a fleet of 270,000 kegs across Australia and New Zealand, with Nick estimating they serviced around 80 percent of the local customer base and around 60 percent in terms of volume.
“Our current position is it’s business as usual,” he added. “The team is still in position, with [McGrathNicol] running a process to sell it as a going concern.”
Konvoy was launched by a group that included many staff and leaders at Kegstar, among them co-founder Adam Trippe-Smith. Over the last six years, the company has expanded significantly internationally and focused on tracking technology to help streamline the logistics around moving kegs across the country and around the globe.
Konvoy's existing customers and suppliers have been informed of the receiver's intention to commence "a sale and / or recapitalisation process for Konvoy Group", and to continue trading on a "business as usual" basis as far as possible.
