Melbourne-based ad-tech company Adslot Ltd (ASX: ADS) has secured a lifeline for its key operating subsidiary after creditors voted to accept a deed of company arrangement (DOCA), avoiding liquidation and returning the company's technology platform to the broader group.
Creditors of Adslot Technologies, Adslot's wholly owned subsidiary, approved the DOCA at a second creditors' meeting today, some five weeks after voluntary administrator Shabnam Amirbeaggi of Crouch Amirbeaggi was appointed.
Under the deed, a fund comprising all cash at bank, debtors, receivables and licence fees collected over six months, net of administration costs, will be distributed pro rata to non-related creditors.
Adslot and related group entities, which hold secured creditor positions, will not participate in the fund, maximising the return to outside creditors.
Ownership of the Adslot Technology Platform, the company's core asset, remains with Adslot Technologies and will return to the group's control once the DOCA is in effect.
The Adslot Technologies subsidiary was placed into voluntary administration on 18 June after its "clearing house" model proved unsustainable.
The company operates the trading account for the Adslot Marketplace platform which serves advertising agencies and global digital publishers, most of them based outside Australia.
At the time, the company said its Adslot Media trading activity through the platform had been affected by "adverse macroeconomic conditions, reduced monetised trading value and broader industry disruption".
Adslot Technologies (ADT) operated the platform using multiple revenue models, including the clearing house model under which the full value of advertising campaigns booked by agencies was received by ADT and then passed on to publishers after deduction of ADT's commission.
"This model required ADT to handle large, complex and variable monthly payment flows and exposed it to significant working capital requirements and a level of risk that ADS viewed as disproportionate to the net commission earned by ADT," said the company in June when the voluntary administrator was appointed.
The platform processed $8.1 million of advertising trades in FY25 but generated just $600,000 in net commission, creating working capital demands that the business could not support.
The broader Adslot group reported revenue of $2.9 million in the first half of FY26, with a net loss of $756,547, a 72 per cent improvement on the prior corresponding period.
However, directors flagged material going-concern uncertainties in the half-year report signed by executive chairman Andrew Dyer, citing the loss of a key customer in property listings giant REA Group and delays in anticipated revenue growth.
Adslot says today that completion of all obligations under the DOCA is expected to take about seven months, after which the DOCA will be terminated.
"Full control of the company will then revert to ADT's sole director, Adslot Limited as 100 per cent shareholder, and the company will cease to be subject to deed administration," says the company.
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