Here’s how the publisher of the loss-making “Canberra Weekly” sold it from the company that was going belly up (in which he is the sole shareholder) to a new company (in which he is the sole shareholder). It’s “Seven Days” with IAN MEIKLE.

SOME years ago, when I was managing director of “The Canberra Times”, chairman Kerry Stokes made a rhetorical observation at a board meeting that, as a media company, we had always to be paragons of the business community. 

He was saying that as we were in the privileged position of exposing wrongdoing and criticising others, it was contingent on us to be totally compliant with paying taxes, suppliers and creditors. 

My colleague and friend at that time was accountant Nick Samaras, these days owner of “Canberra Weekly”. 

He’s been attracting public attention over recent weeks because his printer IVE Group Australia (to whom he owes $1,050,675) and the Australian Tax Office ($422,955) were pressing in on his Canberra publishing company. Newstate Media has now collapsed with debts totalling $1,573,215 leaving them, and the Commonwealth Bank ($80,129) with little prospect of being paid.

And outside the local spotlight, there is more debt in two associated companies that slipped into liquidation at around the same time – Newstate Media (Newcastle), which published the “Newcastle Weekly”, and Newstate Media Holdings.

According to Samaras’ signed report on “company activities and property” to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) dated June 24, Newstate Newcastle collapsed owing the ATO $103,723, its printer – IVE – $186,760, Commonwealth Bank, $38,044 and the Australian Workers Union, $9913. That’s a total of $338,440.

And, in a separate ASIC filing on the same day, Samaras reported the holding company owed the ATO another $152,302. 

Meanwhile, his ex-wife and editor, Julie Samaras, has been busily spinning sunshine on social media that, no really, all’s well around “Canberra Weekly”. 

The liquidator of the Newstate group, Eddie Senatore, might be good enough to explain to her why the creditors, owed a total of $2,063,057, may be less sanguine, in particular the total owed by the group to the printer ($1,237,435) and the ATO ($678,980). 

In the minutes of a Newstate creditors’ meeting on August 15, Senatore advised there may be an insolvent trading claim against Samaras, “however, the liquidator would need to be funded in order to pursue the claim, as there was limited funds in the external administration”.

He’s correct. There is $50,000 in outstanding advertising revenue available to the liquidator, pretty well the same number that Senatore is charging to put Newstate to sleep. 

In response to questioning from the printer about trading while insolvent, Senatore advised the meeting that, from preliminary enquiries, Samaras had “limited personal financial capacity in order to satisfy such a claim, and investigations were still ongoing”.

I have written about the collapse of Newstate Media on our website citynews.com.au, as has the Riotact website through some credible reporting by Ian Bushnell. 

Samaras, 65, has posted a statement on his website saying: “Some of our media competitors in this town, with ulterior motives and hidden agendas, will want to have their say to suit their purposes.”

He did not dispute the accuracy of any earlier reporting, which also revealed how he sold the magazine from the indebted company, in which he is the sole shareholder, to a new company, Newstime Media, in which he is the sole shareholder. 

I have no ulterior motive, nor hidden agenda, but I believe this story is in the public interest and instructive to the Canberra business community. 

It started on May 3 when Samaras went to discuss his group’s burgeoning debt problems with Eddie Senatore Advisory. 

I have pieced the chronology of Newstate’s demise and the phoenix-like rise of Newstime mostly from Senatore’s diligent subsequent filings (as liquidator) to ASIC.

June 2: “I received a telephone call from the director [Samaras] who advised he had now received a final notice of demand and statutory winding up by IVE Group… on the same day I had further discussion with the director for the available options to the company including a voluntary administration and a creditors’ voluntary liquidation,” Senatore reports.

June 10: Samaras registers the new company Newstime Media Pty Ltd, with its address at Griffith accounting firm MGI Joyce Dickson. He is the sole director, secretary and shareholder. 

June 20: Samaras sells the magazine and its assets to Newstime for an unknown price, effectively removing all assets from Newstate Media.

June 24: Samaras signs and dates ASIC liquidation forms for Newstate Newcastle and Newstate Holdings, reporting combined debts of $490,742 (but not received by the liquidator until July 21). 

June 28: Senatore is approached by Samaras requesting he act as liquidator to Newstate Media. 

July 11: Senatore is appointed voluntary administrator. In his “Declaration of Independence”, he provides reasoning that the pre-appointment interactions did not affect his independence and attests that he provided no further information or advice to Samaras.

July 20: Senatore chairs a meeting of Newstate’s creditors at which he advises his appointment as administrator is “as a result of the insufficient assets to meet its obligations as and when they became due”. 

On questioning from the printer, Senatore says he’s in the process of investigating the sale of Newstate’s assets to Newstime and that he would report to ASIC during the course of his administration. If the sale was deemed undervalued he would seek to overturn the transaction, saying he would seek funding from ASIC to pursue the claim.

August 15: A second creditors’ meeting of 27 minutes resolves to wind up Newstate Media and that the liquidator disposes of the books and records of the company in three months “or earlier at the discretion of ASIC”.

In summary, as his Newcastle business fails and in the shadow of the threat of closure from his creditors, Samaras sells the principal asset of Newstate Media – “Canberra Weekly” – to Newstime leaving the company bereft of assets, and its creditors without hope of being paid. 

What the ATO or ASIC choose to do next is unknown, but I fancy the printer will be left to suck it up. Not a place for paragons. 

Ian Meikle is the editor of “CityNews” and can be heard with Rod Henshaw on the “CityNews Sunday Roast” news and interview program, 2CC, 9am-noon.