Unhappy creditor pursues wind-up of flexible work firm

A disgruntled creditor owed almost $1 million in unpaid rent is seeking to wind up embattled ASX listed coworking outfit Victory Offices.

The flexible work firm is facing the wind-up application in Victoria’s Supreme Court from retirement village creator Zig Inge Group.

The retirement developer, whose wealthy founder and namesake Zig Inge passed away last month, owns an office block in Melbourne’s leafy St Kilda boulevard in which Victory ran a coworking space.

Zig Inge is trying to claw back $985,268 in unpaid rent and has also asked the court to appoint liquidator Shane Cremin from Rodgers Reidy to take control of the firm.

A run on the ASX-listed Victory’s shares and a COVID-caused slump in office-based working is putting extreme pressure on the group’s business model, forcing it to close seven loss-making hubs in Sydney and Melbourne earlier this month.

One of those hubs was in Zig Inge’s 180 St Kilda Road building.

Others that closed were in Sydney’s Barangaroo, Castlereagh, Mount and George streets, as well as in Lang Walker’s Melbourne tower at 727 Collins Street, and another building in Box Hill.

Shares in Victory have suffered catastrophic falls, slumping from a pre-pandemic peak of $2.14 to a miserly 2.3¢ today, wiping out nearly $76.5 million in shareholder value in just three years.

The company floated on the ASX with much fanfare in 2019 with a market capitalisation of about $80 million. It is worth $3.55 million at current market prices.