John Spark and Bruce Carter of accountancy firm Ferrier Hodgson have been appointed as receivers for the failed publicly listed wine company Normans Wines, which owes the ANZ bank $34 million, unsecured grape growers around $11 million, while Normans noteholders still have about $9 million in convertible scrip. Having pulled out of efforts to merge with the company, Xanadu is still pursuing a number of Normans’ brands, especially those with an export focus. The achilles heel that brought Normans undone was its debt level, which robbed it of sufficient financial strength to pursue its export endeavours. Normans shares, now suspended, last traded at A$0.145 on July 13, giving the company a market capitalisation of A$4.7 million.
