ABC2 Group’s Court Appointed Receiver (CAR), PPB Corporate Recovery (PPB), has announced today that 470 parties have submitted non-binding offers for the Government-supported ABC Learning centres.
ABC2 Group comprises the 262 child care centres which were previously under the control of ABC Learning Centre’s Receiver, McGrathNicol, and which were judged unviable under the ABC business model. It also includes 13 centres that were labelled as ABC centres and were previously operated by 123 Operations.
In December last year, the Rudd Government made up to $34 million available to these child care centres open until 31 March 2009, to provide some certainty to parents and employees affected by the collapse.
On 14 January, PPB commenced a formal Expression of Interest process under which interested buyers needed to demonstrate that they could provide high quality, long-term child care in a safe environment. As part of this process, interested buyers have been alerted to the requirements they will need to meet in order to secure a license.
By 21 January, PPB had received more than 600 formal expressions of interest from a diverse range of parties.
Interested parties were then provided with more detailed information on the centres and PPB indicated whether they believed the offers met the requirements. A total of 470 non-binding offers were then submitted by 31 January.
The continuing strong interest clearly demonstrates that the market believes that there is a viable future for many of these centres.
PPB will now determine which of the interested parties will be shortlisted, having regard to the selection criteria and their duties as Court Appointed Receiver. Shortlisted parties will be given access to more detailed information on the centres and will be invited to participate in Phase 2 of the process by submitting formal (binding) offers by 25 February 2009.
PPB will also be considering whether there are some circumstances where the best option is to transfer children to nearby centres.
ABC2 Group centres will continue to operate as normal through until 31 March 2009 where necessary. PPB, with assistance from the Government, is aiming to resolve the future of all centres under their control by 31 March 2009.
Further details on the Expressions of Interest process is available at: www.ppb.com.au/site/abc