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The winding down of ICP Biotechnology picked up pace yesterday with the company's assets put up for sale.
The NZX-listed company was described as having two distinct businesses, a veterinary embryo transfer operation set up in 1983 and a plasma protein business which had been operating since 2007.
Receivers KordaMentha were called in this month and said the business and its assets were now available for immediate sale.
Draft financial statements as at May 14 showed group subsidiary ICPbio had $6.8 million worth of stock and total net assets of minus $19 million.
The receivers had been called in only one day after ICP Biotechnology's directors tried to save the company through voluntary administration.
A statement from chairman Roger Gower on behalf of the board yesterday said the directors believed that voluntary administration was the best way to preserve value and allow enough time for further restructuring.
"The board of directors are mindful that the plasma fractionation manufacturing and sales activity was a start-up business that needed time to establish its credentials in competitive international markets," Gower said.
The company posted a net loss of $13.5 million for the year ending June 30, with former chief executive Earl Stevens having resigned last May, only weeks after a forecast trading profit was revised to a loss.
"The directors were disappointed that a secured lender, who had been consulted, decided to appoint receivers ... thereby preventing the voluntary administrators an opportunity to carry out their role to design and implement a successful restructuring," Gower said.
The receivers were understood to have been called in by finance company Easy Factors.
Listed investment company Viking Capital had a 21.6 per cent stake in ICP Biotechnology, loans to the company worth $870,000 and owned and leased the business two freeze driers valued at about $1.3 million.
Shares in ICP Biotechnology last traded at 1.5c, while Viking Capital closed yesterday at 10.5c.
