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Adelaide-based LVX Global, a smart cities and infrastructure engineering group that has worked on major projects such as Sydney’s light rail and the Brisbane Airport expansion, has been placed into administration with plans now under way to sell the company’s key business assets.
The move comes just seven months after a $39 million takeover of the company was announced by Design Milk Co (ASX: DMV), the owner and operator of e-commerce websites that support brands and designers globally.
Under the buyout agreement, LVX founder and former CEO Corey Gray and cornerstone investor the Bombora Special Investments Growth Fund had agreed to sell their shares with the deal requiring full shareholder approval to proceed.
Although Design Milk Co informed the ASX in December that its buyout of LVX Global was still proceeding, it noted at the time that the volatility of equity markets had pushed completion of the deal until the first half of 2024.
The conditional deal had been extended to Friday, 29 March 2024, but administrators Ken Whittingham and Mark Robinson, of Fort Restructuring, were appointed to LVX Global on 27 March.
LVX Global provides tech-led consulting, engineering and project management services with the administrators now in control of five companies within the group operating across Australia. Most of the group’s 25 employees are based in South Australia.
The administrators say they are confident that the businesses and assets will be sold as a going concern, or that the companies will be restructured under a deed of company arrangement (DOCA).
“Under either scenario we expect that most employees’ jobs will be preserved, and the businesses will continue to trade,” say the administrators in a joint statement.
“The employees of this group have specialist and proven technology-led engineering expertise and a track record of successful building and other infrastructure related projects.”
In the meantime, the administrators are seeking expressions of interest for three of LVX Global’s business assets - FireM, Iciti and Norman Asset Delivery.
FireM delivers Internet Of Things (IOT) technology that identifies and maps the location of events in a building, and interfaces with fire, security and building management systems.
Iciti provides efficient technology for smart city solutions, while also using existing infrastructure to enable the benefits of smart city.
Norman Asset Delivery consults to clients in the resources, property and public infrastructure sectors offering services such as engineering, project management, design management and authority approvals.
Both FireM and Norman Asset Delivery were acquired by LVX Global in 2021.
LVX Global was founded in 1991 as a project design and engineering company with a focus on lighting solutions.
Key projects in its early years including the Wirra Wirra Winery development and Wolf Blass visitor centre in its home market of South Australia before it expanded interstate to Western Australia, NSW and Queensland and then internationally to Europe, the US and Asia.
LVX has since transformed into a technology-led, end-to-end engineered products, platform and solutions business.
Among the major projects to which the group has provided services are the Mooloolaba foreshore redevelopment, the Sydney light rail project and the Brisbane Airport domestic terminal redevelopment where it was engaged to “futureproof the functional, commercial and environmental outcomes” of the facility.
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