Receivers of Botry-Zen are delisting the Dunedin-based biotech company from the New Zealand stock exchange today and have advised there will be no payout to shareholders who have ploughed $12 million into the company since 1991.
Botry-Zen, which manufactured two biological products to fight a widespread grape-wasting fungus, owed creditors more than $2.6 million when it went into receivership last December.
Dunedin receivers WHK's first report estimated a secured debt of $1.2 million to the BNZ, $1.1 million to Melic Innovators, with preferential creditors owed $47,766 and the report estimated unsecured trade creditors owed $279,000.
The receivers yesterday applied to the stock exchange to have Botry-Zen delisted as "following the realisation of Botry-Zen's assets and the repayment of creditors, there will be no funds available for distribution to Botry-Zen shareholders".
Botry-Zen is scheduled to be delisted from the alternative board at the close of the stock exchange today. Botry-Zen is still trading and selling product and the business is being marketed for sale.
Receiver Matt Taylor yesterday said several parties were being spoken with. He hoped Botry-Zen could be sold as a "lock, stock and barrel" going concern, as opposed to just the sale of its $1.7 million intellectual value.
Botry-Zen had estimated assets with a book value of just under $2.5 million, of $170,000 from debtors, stock worth $540,000 and fixed assets and intellectual property of $1.768 million, but the receivers have not estimated what those asset values sales might possibly be worth.
Botry-Zen was placed in receivership in December after shareholders refused, for the second time in 15 months, to inject $1.5 million new capital into the cash-strapped venture. That refusal prompted the board to ask the company's financier, BNZ, to appoint a receiver.
Shareholders had previously refused a $1.8 million recapitalisation, in September 2008, which pushed Botry-Zen close to collapse.
Two private investors stumped up with $1 million in a mix of loan and shares, and German interests purchased 5% of Botry-Zen for $207,000.
For the full financial years spanning 2004 to March 2009, Botry-Zen consecutively booked losses totalling more than $7.8 million, and during those years generated annual revenues totalling $1.3 million.
