more bad jobs news from forge: shorten

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/business/breaking-news/more-bad-jobs-news-from-forge-shorten/story-fni0xqe4-1226825207979


OPPOSITION Leader Bill Shorten has lamented the loss of more Australian jobs following news mining services company, Forge Group, has been placed into voluntary administration.
"It's a devastating announcement - our thoughts are with the workers and their families," Mr Shorten said in a statement issued late on Wednesday.

The decision to appoint administrators comes less than a fortnight after Forge said it expected to post a full year loss of up to $25 million.

The company is understood to hold debt with the ANZ Bank and has been on the market since January as it struggled with the construction of power stations in Western Australia.

Mr Shorten said more than 1000 job losses would stem from Forge's collapse.

"This has been an awful week for job losses in Australia - first Toyota and now this," he said.

"I am so worried that there is still more bad news to come when it comes to jobs in Australia."

Talk of a restructure at Forge has also cast a cloud over the construction of a $1.47 billion processing facility at Gina Rinehart's Roy Hill iron ore project in WA, which is worth $830 million to the company.

In December, Forge announced writedowns of $127 million associated with its Diamantina Power Station and West Angelas Power Station projects.

This led to an 84 per cent dive in Forge's shares in one day and since November its stock has fallen 78 per cent on bad financial news.

Forge shares were placed in a trading halt at 91.5 cents on Tuesday ahead of an expected announcement to the market.

The first meeting of creditors is scheduled to take place in Perth on February 21.

Receivers KordaMentha later confirmed that 1300 Forge employees on power stations and mining projects in WA and Queensland have been retrenched.

"There is no money to pay employees and no work to perform," KordaMentha spokesman Mark Mentha said in a statement.

Workers were told of the redundancies at a meeting on Wednesday afternoon.

"We will be bringing the employees back to their home town and helping them apply for their entitlements," Mr Mentha said.

Forge's offshore operations will be maintained until their sale, but Australian projects dissolved on Wednesday.

"Today's moves by some of the owners of the projects forced our hand because there is no cash to carry employees," Mr Mentha said.

He said employees will receive their entitlements from the sale of Forge assets and the federal government scheme that guaranteed basic entitlements.