Brennan IT buys S Central

The comments disappeared!

Why would truthful comments be taken off? Staff haven't been paid and are angry. Peter will be ok after this and will continue to on the rich lists. Employees still have to make their mortgages and feed their families.

Some inaccuracies are in the article

SC hasn’t paid any of its suppliers for 8+ weeks.
About 30% of the staff still hasn’t got paid and Peter calls this a technical issue which was quickly resolved?

Several staff members can verify that it is not true. Just call any of them to get the names, who didn’t get paid.

I am disappointed in ARN printing an article purely based on what Peter Mavridis says and not checking the facts. It is much easier just to remove the comments.

Please contact HP, Dell, or any of the other suppliers SCentral was using to verify this, instead of simply removing this comment as well.

So let me get this straight

SCentral will not pay any of it’s suppliers, the ATO, staff, declare bankruptcy (How else you can wipe off close to 20 Mill of debt) and merge with Brennan IT?

I wonder how happy HP will be to deal with Brennan IT to do SCentral deals after losing millions on SCentral? Great move Brennan IT.

Dear Nadia

I wonder why “SCentral gone bankrupt” wasn’t mentioned? It is clear that Brennan IT is not buying the liabilities, just the assets and customer relations. Who is going to pay the suppliers and staff?

Please research into this more and write a more complete story about it as everyone close this company knows this marketing message from SCentral and Brennan IT is not entirely true.

SCentral vs Leading

At least Colli had a decency to declare bankruptcy. Mavridis calls it a merger and ARN event prints this.

Bankruptcy is not a merger !!

S Central has gone bankrupt !!

This is not a merger - it is an acquisition of assets, probably at a very favourable price to Brennan. I wonder where that money will go ?

The staff will have to fight for their money, the suppliers will have to fight for their money, and the customers will be left high and dry.

Where?

I personally know ex staff members of Scentral that have been directed to GEERS to get their cash. So where has all the money gone? There were profitable business units in the Scentral Group and yet the creditors and staff dont get paid. Surely Scentrals accounts department is not so inept it cannot recover funds from its debtors? So again, where has all the money gone?

The lid needs to be lifted on this and ASIC and the ATO need to investigate further to find out why Mavridis is squeaky clean and yet his staff were left wanting. He needs to be held accountable for everyone he has let down.

Where is the money Peter? Why havent you paid your staff? How long were you trading on a line of credit for?

lol how about holding ananymous commentors responcible? if youse are all about truth and justice, put your names on big guy!

Peter Mavridis not joining Brennan

What's this about Peter Mavridis joining Brennan? That's news to me!! I heard he had not been offered a contract....

Yes it is unfortunate

I will guess that the previous comment is from one of Peter Mavridis's favourites in HR - who no doubt has been handsomely paid for ALL their services.

The fact remains that many employees have NOT been paid (I know one who has lost 10 weeks in pay and leave entitlements). Does the previous writer not understand that even one has not recieved their proper pay that this is wrong???

re Infotronics New Staff

I pitty the new staff hired in the last month my Peter Mavaridis, as reported in the last issues of ARN magazine
that new hires had Happened ,
S Central Management must have known full well of the issues at hand, to wreck havick with Peoples Lives, expecially the familys.
I feel for all staff of S Central and the 6 companys that have being devowed by peter. the current and former staff are owed vast ammounts of money.

thting has being an ongoing issue with S Central for months.

Are you for real?

As the spouse of an SCentral ex employee (notification has come in that they are no longer employed), I can't believe that you would say that the minority are outspoken. Lucky you that you got paid. But we still have to pay our mortgage, pay bills and live. How will we do that when the main breadwinner hasn't been paid for a month? Will you write to the banks and ask for an extension of time to pay? How dare you assume that we should be grateful for how staff have been treated.

Make a Report

OK people, enough complaining. Get serious and lodge your complaint with ASIC. & FWO.

If you are a Company, use this online form - https://www.edge.asic.gov.au/008/complaintV005?get/complainant/t=225a50493fa5e4aab66aa85745789274f557c65

Employees, head to the Fair Work Ombudsman, http://www.fwo.gov.au/Make-a-complaint/pages/default.aspx

Let's do this on mass and stop it from happening all over again.

I Agree James

I agree with James, most of the businsses that S Central purchased were marginal and some hadn't been making any money for years. Thats why they had to make some unpopular changes, get rid of the dead wood and the former owners.

Good pick up for Brennan!

So does that excuse Peter not paying at least 30 employees wages?

The Real James Bowes

Whether the real James Bowes made those comments is not the point. The fact is it's the truth

S Central Management

A lot of the original management and sales people left Scentral over 12 months ago, but the business kept going downhill. Being a dynamic entrepreneur as James Bowes mentioned does not make that person a good leader or business administrator. A good general does not blame his troops or forgets to feed them because of a "technical problem", as Peter Maviridis puts it for not paying 30 employees. Who decides which employees get paid and which don't. People have stuck by Peter Maviridis because they trusted him. By not looking after the troops is a sure way of losing the war. Peter Maviridis, in your case, not onlt have you lost the war, \ you have deserted your loyal troops, which is inexcusable. No doubt he will pop up elsewhere and create havoc once more. It's just a matter of time; sad but true.

ATTENTION PETER MAVRIDIS

Dear Mr Peter Mavridis,
In the chance that you read these forums, I would like to express my public disappointment on how you have handled the sale of your business, and the lack of communication to your team. Unfortunately, as many of the SCentral employees , I too have not been paid, and what is most frustrating is the lack of care from your behalf. It is truely a testimant to one’s character as to how they treat other human beings, and in your case, the lack of respect that has been shown to the employees, the vendors, contractors and any other people and companies who have represented your business and assisted with your success.

You have boasted your public profile, and the success of the SCentral’s empire via many different public forums over the years, and I congratulate you. But, in the recent weeks, how you have handled the difficulties the company has been experiencing has been disgusting. You have left all of your employees in the dark for many weeks, whilst the banks have been in and out of your offices. Not once was there any communication with respect to what was going on, and leaving people to only make assumptions. Assumptions that were in actual fact true (SCentral being bankrupt).

You have been a coward and not faced the people who have been behind you. To worsen your credibility and lack of integrity, you have failed to pay all or employees. Sure, some have been paid, but it is your duty to ensure that payment has been made to all those who represent your business. I am appalled by your behaviour, and hope that you see what you have done to many, and the impact caused to their livelihoods and families.

Peter Mavridis, do us all a favour and leave the IT industry and venture into other areas. This industry can do without you, as its people like you who give this industry a bad rep

It’s time to go... Peter Mavridis....

This is a great opportunity for Brennan IT, and well done guys on a great purchase. SCentral is a successful business and I look forward to see Brennan IT and SCentral capitalise on the mid markets.

On CRN Mavridis now says that staff will be paid from a "7m account" and not GEERS and S Central will be wound down and not declared insolvent (a requirement for GEERS to apply). But he publicly told staff last week that GEERS would be used and S Central would be declared insolvent. This was reinforced in the press by both Mavridis and Dave Stevens (Brennan CEO). So what is correct?

Brennan is at least tryiing to do the right thing by staff and has put in place measures to help those caught short.

But how can you believe the S Central position. In the public figures disclosed during the failed merger with ComputerCorp S central showed NET liabilities of over $10 million. If there will be a capital surplus as Mavridis alleges in the article where is it coming from? How did the $10m in net liabilities disappear. somehow magically another $10 million plus appeared?

Not very plausible I think.

As for those who seek to blame the business Mavridis bought - you clearly know nothing about what you are talking about - and it is Mavridis who has been "managing" them for some time now.

He is a destroyer of wealth

I have known Peter Mavridis for over 15 years on a professional basis. He is a great visionary. What happenned with SCentral were the principals of the companies purchased by Peter did not fulfill their revenue promises. Let's not kick the man while he is down. No one deserves this. If you are a loyal employee, then show it to Peter. Brennan IT are vultures trying to take the best bits. They will not hesitate to dump you if you are not needed. Peter did not dump anyone, despite the fact that Scentral was bleeding financially. Stop complaining about not being paid what is owed to you. When he gets the money you will be paid. You are all very self centred and short sighted. Peter is too good for you.

visonaries grow companies and employ people ....you must be an employee

Sure.
Visionaries also

Sure.

Visionaries also consolidate their purchases, integrate them into the system and make the new organisation work as a unit.

In 3 years Peter purchased ExpressApps, Rich, AGM IT, DA Library Technologies, Infotronics, Clariti and a group of ex-kaz engineers in Canberra.

If you define "visionary" as "someone who collects company for the sake of having a collection", you'd be wrong.

If you define a visionary as someone who builds a company by acquisition, consolidation and through organic growth, you'd be right.

Visionaries would have seen the flaws of acquisition for acquisition's sake.

I know for a fact that just one of those businesses was worth 1.5 times that much only a few years ago.

Most of those businesses had weathered the dot com bust too so it wasn't the GFC that nailed them.

If SCentral sells it's shell to Brennan for more than a million or two, personally, I'll be much surprised.

S Central acquisitions

I know two of the aquired businesses...geez why did he buy them although I understand S Central paid very little for them at the time

SCentral Terminations

For those that don't know, all SCentral staff were terminated yesterday on a public holiday via email. As we have read 60 odd staff are being offered jobs at Brennan. Some have little choice, some look forward to it and others want nothing to do with Peter Mavridis ever again.

So what now? Peter has gone on the record as saying he will pay staff who are owed their entitlements. But I ask when Peter?

New Roles

Thats the normal process in a business assets sale. We went through it with Clariti which was also sold as a business asset sale. You terminate your contracts with the old entity and sign new ones with the new entity.

You must be a Kid...you will go through this many times in your career young man

Its only a matter of time

Purchasing the assets is not buying the business. You only do this when the company has a lot of problems.
My understading is that Scentral has been getting letters of demand from suppliers, it is only a matter of time before the end. At which point any asset sale will be reversed.

it's no surprise

As an ex. employee I can verify that there were a lot of 'technical difficulties' that prohibited S Central paying it's staff on time and correctly over the past few months.

Employees that had worked hard for S Central's success had been suffering long before the failure of the ComputerCorp merge. HOW DARE anybody accuse those staff who are owed this money to be 'kicking the man whilst he is down' when he refused to listen months ago to his staff when he had the chance. How many bad decisions of Peter's are they expected to deal with.

Senior management was hired by Peter on the basis of friendship not merit, no wonder S Central was a failure, it's certainly come as no surprise to me.

SC grew 40% pa?

Obviously you believe the marketing or what PM has told you. The combined revenue of the businesses purchased were about 50 mill and SC ended up turning over 30 mill once it added these businesses together. SC only grew by acquision and within 12 month after each acquision most businesses lost 50% of the value because of PM's management. The organic growth was negative.

Funny.

This makes me laugh. One hopeless company buying another... How do they keep their clients?

i heard they setup a new hosting biz in sydney....

Caution with Comments

People, I have been reading these comments with interest since the article was first posted. While there is a lot of truth being said, there are also quite obviously a lot of people who have no idea of recent or historical events, but think they do.

Also, I would advise against making defamatory comments, Don't believe you can hide behind an "anonymous" tag. I'm sure your IP address is firmly attached to your comment. So "John" and the supposed ex-Clariti director, be careful.

My thoughts go out to all the staff and their families who are suffering at the moment.

Finally, and for the record, and to hopefully stop some more comments coming back at me:

1. I am living in Melbourne
2. I am still owed money from SC as well
3. My wife is not a Taiwanese hooker.

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