Liquidator finds the directors withdrew large sums of money days before calling in the receivers.

Days before placing the company in receivership, the directors of the troubled Brisbane Baroque Festival paid $64,000 into two of their other companies according to the official Liquidator. The information emerged at the creditor’s meeting held last week on February 2.

The Melbourne meeting was attended by, among others, conductor and harpsichordist Erin Helyard, Alison Johnston of Orchestra of the Antipodes, harpsichord maker Carey Beebe, Michael Stout, Associate Director of Finance and Business at QPAC and Eddie Muscat from the Liquidator, Mayfields Business Advisors. Brisbane Baroque director Shannon Pigram was also present.

The Liquidators drew the meeting’s attention to a bank statement for the Festival account revealing that a payment of around $64,000 had been made to Brisbane Baroque from the Australian Taxation Office in mid-November, and that $64,000 had subsequently been withdrawn from the account on January 6 this year, just a few days before the liquidator was appointed. The money was taken out in two payments, the first of $25,000 to Studio Jack (the design company owned by Pigram and his partner Jarrod Carland) and the second of $39,000 to Jarrod Carland Enterprises.

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