{"id":45947,"date":"2023-10-20T15:47:25","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:47:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/sports-media-company-that-raised-more-than-70-million-from-high-profile-investors-such-as-malcolm-turnbull-collapses-into-liquidation-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:47:25","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:47:25","slug":"sports-media-company-that-raised-more-than-70-million-from-high-profile-investors-such-as-malcolm-turnbull-collapses-into-liquidation-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/sports-media-company-that-raised-more-than-70-million-from-high-profile-investors-such-as-malcolm-turnbull-collapses-into-liquidation-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Sports media company that raised more than $70 million from high-profile investors such as Malcolm Turnbull collapses into liquidation – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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 <\/p>\n

A sports media company that received more than $70 million from high-profile investors including Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has collapsed into liquidation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

PlayUp specialised in monetising content from sporting clubs and athletes around the world, but showed signs of distress last year when a number of directors left its board, including Rich Lister Bruce Mathieson.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The business was founded in 2007 by George Tomeski and Luke Bunbury with a $5 million investment from angel investors.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

PlayUp later raised an additional $18 million in a second capital-raising, followed by a $US50 million capital injection from four Hong Kong investors, according to StartupSmart<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Fairfax reports Turnbull invested around $1 million in PlayUp when he was shadow communications minister, but managed to regain most of his money.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Six former staff members have been seeking to wind-up PlayUp\u2019s holding company, Revo Pty Ltd, for some time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The former employees claim to have been owed around $500,000 in unpaid wages and superannuation, according to Fairfax.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A number of hearings were held last year to determine whether or not to wind-up Revo, including in the Supreme Court of Victoria.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The business was finally placed in liquidation last week, with Grant Thornton Australia partner Stephen Dixon appointed external manager.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Is it common for former employees to initiate wind-up orders?<\/strong><\/h3>\n


<\/strong><\/h3>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sydney insolvency practitioner Jamieson Louttit told SmartCompany<\/em> it is \u201cvery uncommon\u201d for a business\u2019s former employees to launch a wind-up application.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cOrdinarily, it\u2019s trade creditors and the suppliers,\u201d Louttit says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cAs an employee, you would normally go to Fair Trading.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Louttit says the employees would have launched the wind-up order in order to pursue any outstanding entitlements.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThe government\u2019s employee entitlement scheme, now called the Fair Entitlement Guarantee with the Department of Employment, will not pay employee entitlements unless the company is in liquidation,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt pays all employee entitlements, except for super, subject to certain limits.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Through the Fair Entitlements Guarantee, employees may be able to claim up to 13 weeks of unpaid wages as well as unpaid annual and long service leave.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In order to be eligible, employees must lodge a claim within 12 months of the date they lost their job or the date of liquidation or a former employer\u2019s bankruptcy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SmartCompany<\/em> contacted Grant Thornton Australia but did not receive a response prior to publication.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Article originally published by SmartCompany. Follow SmartCompany on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  A sports media company that received more than $70 million from high-profile investors including Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":63067,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,22,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45947"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}