Viento prays for a lifeline
Directors and insolvency specialists are said to be working on a rescue plan for Viento Group after the contracting company was put into administration.
Losses stemming from a contract on Chevron's Wheatstone last year led to Hall Chadwick being appointed on Wednesday.
The administrators are continuing to trade the group's businesses while considering a restructure via a proposed deed of company arrangement.
The proposed package might include a capital raising announced by Viento last month in the form of a $7 million rights issue.
The collapse follows efforts by the board to recapitalise Viento in the wake of a $14.5 million half-year loss and the breach of a banking covenant.
The company's malaise was blamed on difficult conditions in the mining industry on top of the troubled contract of switchroom-making subsidiary HVLV.
However, in the past month the group has won $47 million in Pilbara contracts with BC Iron and Rio Tinto, and appointed a managing director in former MACA boss Doug Grewar.
Viento has about 250 employees. Its suspended shares last traded at 3.6¢, valuing the company at $3.5 million.
Formerly a minerals explorer and then a financial services provider, Viento moved into mining services sector three years ago. Industry heavyweights Ray Munro, John Silverthorne and John Farrell became shareholders and directors.
A $21 million deal last year to buy Steve De Mol's HVLV made the businessman Viento's biggest shareholder.
Mr De Mol became a director but quit the board last August. When the problems emerged at Wheatstone, he struck a deal with the directors to slash the cost of the HVLV transaction by more than $10 million.
The group's problems worsened in December when a court put HVLV subsidiary Power Infrastructure Services into liquidation.
Auditor Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu in February had expressed concern about Viento's ability to continue as a going concern, saying the uncertainties were "material and pervasive".
