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The fate of Australian software and services company Plutora is expected to rest with a deed of company arrangement (DOCA) likely to be proposed by co-founder and CEO Dalibor Siroky to creditors within the next two weeks.
Plutora, a Sydney-founded company that is now headquartered at Mountain View in Silicon Valley, was placed into voluntary administration last week with debts of $37.3 million.
Described as a provider of value stream management solutions for enterprise IT, Plutora was placed into voluntary administration following an ongoing dispute with the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) over research and development grants received by the company.
A spokesperson for administrators at Salea Advisory notes that the majority of the debts owed to creditors comprises about $31 million in loans to related-party companies, while a secured creditor is owed $5 million.
“The related parties in the US and UK aren’t subject to the administration,” says the spokesperson.
The debt to the ATO stands at $900,000, which makes it the largest unsecured creditor outside of the related-party loans.
Entitlements including superannuation and leave owed to the company’s 11 employees is about $260,000 and a further $150,000 is owed to trade creditors.
A DOCA will require the approval of at least 50 per cent of creditors by number and 50 per cent of the value of the debt owed if it is to be accepted by the administrators.
“The company is still trading and its business as usual for customers and suppliers,” the Salea Advisory spokesperson tells Business News Australia.
“We are currently liaising with the director who is looking to put forward a deed of company arrangement proposal.”
A DOCA remains the most likely outcome of proposals to be put before creditors at their second meeting which is expected to be held in the next two weeks, pending the release of the creditors' report from administrators.
Founded in 2012, by Siroky and Sean Hamawi, Plutora provides “advanced and feature-rich products to manage software releases, test environments, and quality”. The company’s early success was aided by Plutora securing a range of large enterprise customers such as Barclays, eBay, and Dell.
The administration of Plutora is notable in light of a reported $46 million capital investment by Macquarie Capital over three years that secured the investment group a significant share of the company.
Plutora made an announcement in 2016 that it had closed a $13.4 million growth equity investment from Macquarie Capital. The Australian Financial Review this week revealed that a further $27.4 million was made by Macquarie in 2019 to give it a 45 per cent stake in Plutora.
The publication also revealed that Macquarie transferred its shares in Plutora to Siroky, who is a former chief information officer of financial advisory at Macquarie, for $1 in February with the investment heavily written down before then.
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