Altech managing director, Anthony Sheen.
Distributor, Altech Computers Corporation, has gone into administration. A search of ASIC reveals the 18-year-old company appointed administrators, Andrew Scott and Daniel Walley, of PPB Advisory on December 3.
The New Zealand arm, Altech Computers Corporation (NZ) has also entered administration.
A first meeting of creditors will be held on December 11 in Sydney.
Problems first came to light in November 2013 when ARN reported that Altech managing director, Antony Sheen, had moved to clear the air over rumours of widespread sackings and vendor unrest at the Sydney-based distributor.
Sheen told ARN at the time that the company had recently introduced new software into its warehouse environment that had doubled the efficiency of warehouse employees.
“As a result of this improved efficiency in the warehouse, staff numbers have been reduced over the past months,” he said.
“Casual employees [about 10 people] were the first to be advised that they were not required and then regrettably, on Friday 15 November, 11 employees were provided with notice of redundancy.
Sheen also denied speculation linking the 2013 job cuts to the loss of Samsung as a vendor.
He said Altech had been engaged in a process of rationalising its pool of vendors for about the last 12 months.
“This has been a deliberate process implemented by Altech. The process has been undertaken with a view to maximising profitability and has involved bringing on new vendors and managing graceful exits with other vendors. Altech’s process with Samsung was one such graceful exit taking place over 12 months," he said.
Sheen also confirmed the departure at the time of former marketing manager, Kevin Hartin, and the settlement of a long running court case with former sales manager, Adrian Blong.
Its corporate profile reveals that annual turnover peaked at around $190m in the 2011/2012 financial year but by FY 2013/2014 had slipped to around $170m, the lowest figure since FY 2008/09.
According to the company website, Altech had office and warehouse facilities in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Auckland and Hong Kong. It offered a broad range of products from market leading vendors to the IT reseller and system builder channel.
Altech was recognised for its growth in BRW Magazine's Fast 100 list as the 6th fastest growing Australian company in 2004 and was featured again in 2006.
Altech's proprietors were commended as regional finalists in Ernst & Young's 2006 Entrepreneurs of the Year award and it was awarded Microsoft's 2008 Australian Distribution Partner of the Year.
The company claimed its success is further attributed to it's ongoing commitment to research and development for both component products and system assembly. Altech incorporated assembly of its own brands: Maestro, NRG and ICU catering for three key markets - entertainment, gaming, and security.
In entertainment, the award-winning Maestro home theatre line was engineered to exceed industry standards. Altech's NRG Gaming Machines were cutting edge systems that were over-clocked by professionals and customised to meet the individual needs of every gamer. In the security market Altech was represented by the ICU brand, a surveillance and security solution.
Historically, it boasted an extensive product range consisting of more than 3000 products, from 60 vendors. Altech was also appointed a Microsoft OEM Distributor - one of only three in Australia at the time, as well as being Australia's largest OEM customer for both Intel and AMD.
