Kleenmaid is (was) an Australian whitegoods manufacturer. I have owned a few of their products over the years, and found them to be well-designed and well-made.

Creditors including the Westpac bank (the same bank that mistakenly deposited $10 million in a NZ customer’s account), voted this morning to wind up the company, which has nearly $100 million in debts.

Directors Brad and Andrew Young said they were really upset, you know,and the financial situation and everything, and they were like, sorry and everything.

But liquidator John Greig, a partner of Deloitte, warned it was unlikely that creditors would ever see their money. He said the brothers appeared to have put all their property in their wives’ names.

Mr Greig said he had alerted the Australian Securities and Investments Commission over the removal of 30 boxes of documents from Kleenmaid’s Sunshine Coast headquarters on Friday by two of the company’s three directors, Andrew Young and his brother Brad.

Deloitte reported to creditors that it was likely that Kleenmaid had traded while insolvent for at least two years.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, franchisees are claiming the mess could have been prevented five years ago if the ACCC had taken their claims of malpractice seriously.

Trading in shares in another major whitegoods manufacturer, Fisher and Paykel, was halted on the ASX today pending a statement on the company’s financial position.