By Derek Schlennstedt
The company formerly known as Tesselaar Flowers Propriety Limited has gone into administration, allegedly leaving many growers thousands of dollars out-of-pocket.
Tesselaar Flowers Pty Ltd, which is a separately-owned company to the Tesselaar Tulip Festival, allegedly owes thousands to creditors and went into voluntary administration on 21 April – only a few days after international flower supplier, Wafex, bought the assets and brand of the company on 12 April.
Wafex had a long-standing supplier relationship with Tesselaar Flowers and it is understood that the company was Tesselaars’ largest flower supplier – and now its biggest creditor.
A creditors’ meeting took place on Friday 3 April, with Ernst and Young confirmed as administrators.
“We’ve been appointed as administrators to administer the company and ultimately wind things up,” administrator Stewart McCallum told the Mail.
“Our job is to realise the remaining assets, which includes some land in Monbulk, and then creditors at the second meeting will decide on the future of the company, which is likely to be liquidation.
“The sale of the company’s assets happened before we were appointed as administrators.
“In this case all but one of the employees have been transferred.”
Not included in the sale to Wafex was the property at 403 Monbulk Road.
Tesselaar Flowers Pty Ltd had been supplying wholesale flowers to florists around the state for 70 years.
According to its website their company is “made possible because of the long-term relationships Tesselaar nurtures with the country’s best wholesale flower growers”.
Anonymous growers in the region told the Mail that many of them had been left out-of-pocket, with the likelihood that they will never recover the money that’s owed to them.
“Some are owed $12,000, $40,000 each,” one said.
“A lot of these growers are small family businesses, and it’s going to really hurt them.”
It’s understood that Tesselaar Flowers Pty Ltd had been available for sale for more than a year before Wafex bought the assets and brand.
Wafex owner and managing director Craig Musson said the addition of Tesselaar operations had created an opportunity to provide an enhanced product offering and greater expertise and efficiency throughout the supply chain from grower to florist.
“Wafex has access to the world’s finest flowers through our international network situated in Australia, the USA, Kenya and Ecuador,” he said.
“Through this transaction, florists and customers of Tesselaar now have even greater access to domestic and international products.
“In addition, they have access to exclusive varieties via our sister company, Helix, which specialises in breeding and marketing of flower varieties.”
Henk Tesselaar, the previous owner of the company, said the Tesselaar family was pleased to sell the assets and brand of Tesselaar Flowers Pty Ltd to an experienced and existing player in the industry.
“When we started this sale process, we were clear that our preference was to sell to an existing player who has extensive experience to continue to provide our customers with a quality product and service,“ he said.
“Wafex ticks those boxes.“
A second creditors’ meeting is due to occur in the coming weeks.
