Melbourne MSP bounces back from collapse

Melbourne MSP Big Red Group has survived the spectre of administration, continuing with plans to launch the Citrix CloudPlatform in the next 60 days.

Big Red Group is now trading on after securing a Deed of Company Arrangement, after going into voluntary administration earlier this year.

CEO Jamie Williams described the difficulties as a "bump in the road".

"We're moving on, business is continuing as normal - our plans for growth and our development. [It's] nothing really that impacts our clients and services and what we had planned for coming year or two."

The company ran into difficulty when networking vendor Metaswitch filed a winding up order on 9 January. Big Red Group subsequently filed for voluntary administration on 10 February.

Asked what led to the difficulties, Williams said the company "entered into something where, legally, we just got caught out."

"The biggest learning is to ensure contracts are checked and legal agreements are in place. It's important to dot the i's and cross the t's."

He said Big Red Group's relationships with key suppliers were important in helping the company trade on. He was particularly grateful for the support Big Red Group has received from Citrix.

"It's one of those situations where you find out who your friends are. The relationships we have with partners meant we can trade on. Without their support we wouldn't have been able to get stock during that period."

The agreement means the company will pay back less than 100 cents in the dollar over a 12-month period, though Williams said he was aiming to pay off the debt sooner.

"We're going to use third funding to get that down as quick as possible," Williams said. "We've got something in place."

Williams is now looking ahead to the launch of the Citrix CloudPlatform and CloudPortal Business Manager in Sydney and Melbourne in the next 60 days or so. He said the company had been working on the launch for 12 months. 

Williams said Big Red Group will be one of three other IT service providers offering the Citrix CloudPlatform locally.