Bryan Hughes, the liquidator of the failed fuel technology company Firepower Operations Pty Ltd, an Australian branch of the BVI-registered Firepower Holdings Group Ltd., has called an informal meeting of shareholders to look into suggestions that company’s previous directors are spending BVI group’s money, setting up a new company called Greenpower. He said he had seen documents showing that money was transferred to a new business as late as July. The liquidator is not sure about the jurisdiction they have registered in, but he has information that they have been operating out of London, making efforts to acquire the stock of Firepower.
At meetings across Australia, Mr. Hughes told that Firepower shareholders would get no return on the millions of dollars they invested into the fuel technology company without taking legal action. By his words, Firepower’s secret accounts showed losses of over $40 million in the past three years. Also, Mr. Hughes had information that there were offshore bank accounts containing significant amounts, and the BVI group itself had no assets and no patents; he said at the meeting that about $80 million to $100 million had been invested in Firepower, but much of the money “had gone straight to other companies through a complex offshore web.”
The company Firepower Operations is to be liquidated with debts of almost $10 million, and corporate regulators from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission are taking new steps against the BVI company and its associated companies.
Firepower has about 1,200 shareholders who have invested up to $100 million. The company owes millions of dollars to creditors, including the Western Force rugby team and Sydney Kings basketball team. Mr Hughes is the official liquidator of the Firepower Group’s British Virgin Islands-based parent company, and he is seeking to have Firepower BVI wound up. Tim Johnston, the sole director of the Australian-based Firepower Operations, who was also the director and executive chairman of the parent company Firepower BVI, could not be reached for comments.
Mr Hughes revealed at the meeting that he would consider actions against Mr Johnston for insolvent trading, and that, by his expectations, there would be petitions for his bankruptcy.